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MONITOR  PROJECTS  FOR  THE  128 


• 


August  1988 
$2.95  U.S. 

$3.95  Canada 


I 


iDVENJDURE 


Dragons 


[•nit 


Other  Skills 


Software  Reviews 

128  California 
Games 
.iMiga  Photon  Paint 
...and  more 

Type-in  Programs 

for  the  64, 128 
and  Amiga 


a  Users 


... 


.'.!, 


> 


t^J 


8& 


KM       l 

l4£ 

J          ■,MJ                /    1 

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SK.RBfl 


Until  now  the  world  was  flat.  X-  Specs  3D. 


Burst  the  Iwo-dimensionol 
straightjocket  that  imprisons 
your  video  graphics.  Enter  the 
full-depth,  full-color  world  of 
X-Specs  3D.  The  third 
dimensional  stereoscopic  world 
of  human  vision. 

How  does  it  work?  The 
X-Specs  advanced  high-speed 
liquid  crystal  shutters  allow 


your  computer  to  control  what 
each  eye  sees  independently  (at 
30  frames  per  second).  The 
results  are  breathtaking. 

Objects  step  out  of  your 
computer's  display  and  into  the 
room  with  lifelike  reality.  You 
can  add  new  life  10 
presentations,  CAD,  molecular 
and  solids  modeling.  You  can 


ploy  games  with  more  realism 
than  ever  imaginable. 

Easy  installation  involves 
plugging  interface  into  joystick 
porl  and  running  soflware 
included.  Look  for  the  variety 
of  new  programs  supporting 
the  X-Specs'  Real  Eyes  vision. 

Ask  your  local  dealer  for  a 
demonstration.  If  he  doesn't 


have  X-Specs  yet,  call  or  write 
us.  We'll  make  sure  you  get  a 
chance  to  see  the  new  world  of 

X-SPECS  3D 

C-64  and  VCR  interface 
coming  soon.  Dealer  &  distrib- 
utor inquiries  invited. 
Amiga  version  list 
price:  $124.95  haitsx 


HAITEX  RESOURCES,  INC.  208  Carrolfton  Park  •  Suite  1207  •  Carrollton,  Texas  75006  •  (214)241-8030 

X-Sc«s  3D  and  Real  Eyw  a*  trademark!  of  Haw*  Resource*,  inc  Amiga  is  a  registered  trademarx  of  Commodore- Amiga  inc.  Picture  above  m  NOT  a  axnputor-oaneraled  Image. 


lN  JAGER  INTERNATIONAL  is  proud  to  announce  the  North  American  release  of 


) 


7  V  *  if-,  I 

on  a  disk  faJU!t^4-ai]d  '.'!!.' 


QnnjiiKidoJe  nivi^.^t^ , 


IT'S  TOTALLY  O] 

Australia's  best-sell  i  rig 

A  5V4  inch  slice  of  Dov  . 

Each  disk  is  double  sided  and  crammed  with  games,  tk 

utilities,  business  and  education  programs. 


I  ■fiTi  I3Vw9T17 


•  Features  of  ISSUE  ONE! 

ENTERTAINMENT 

•  Forest  Raiders  —  High  Speed  Danger* 

•  Road  Block  —  Action  Strategy* 

•  Bert  The  Bug  —  Family  Fun 

UTILITIES  &  TOOLS 

•  Track  &  Sector  Spreadsheet  —  DOS  Utility1' 

•  Screens  to  Basic  —  Captures  Screen  to  Print  Statements* 

•  Nice  Lister  —  Format  Printouts  Control  Codes"' 

•  Function  Key  —  Gives  C64,  C128  F-Keys51' 

EDUCATION 

•  Typing  Tutor  —  Learn  to  Touch  Type 
(includes  game) 

•  3D  Plot  —  Create  3D  Shapes  Using  Formula 

BUSINESS/HOME 

•  Appointment  Manager  —  Diary/Calcnderf 

•  Littie  Invoicer  —  Business  Invoicingt 

GRAPHICS/MUSIC 

•  Waltzing  Matilda  plus  many  programs 
from  Europe!* 

EDITORIAL 

•  Care  &  Maintenance  of  your  C64 

•  Out  and  About  Sydney  plus  many 
more  programs! 


•  WIN  A  TRIP  FOR 
TWO  DOWN  UNDER! 

We  want  to  take  you  there  to  welcome  in    /  _>. 
the  summer  of  88/89.  By  sending  in 
this  coupon  you  immediately  / 

become  eligible  to  win  a  / '  ^ 

/      A 

holiday  for  two  i 
Australia.  Entries 
close  Octo 
31. 


<*  ^'ir^'v/ 


Full  Machine  Code     f  Compiled  Basic 


AUGUST  20,2087 

Nothing  could  be  worse  than  this  god- 
forsaken, radioactive  desert. 

More  Sniperdroids!  All  tracking  me  with  them 
death  glares.  And  them  Uzis.  They're  weird  trigger- 
twitchin' folks.  I  suspect  it's  them  poisoning 
the  water. 

Or  maybe  it's  those  LeatherThugs.  Heck,  I 
don't  know  anymore.  I  heard  they 
have  a  bunch  of  civilians  cut  off  east 
of  Ranger  Center,  which  is  where 
I'm  headed.  Hope  not.  They  want 
me  dead.  Like  every  other  mutant 
this  side  of  Vegas. 

The  worst  part  is,  I'm  getting 
to  be  as  bad  as  they  are.  You 
wouldn't  believe  some  of  the  ways 
I've  learned  to  kill.  I  hang  out  in 
sewers,  and  my  best  friend  is  a 
MAC  17  submachine  gun. 

Gramps  talked  about  life  before  the  nuclear 
war.  All  I  know  is  I  don't  want  others  living  this  way. 
Gotta  rebuild  this  desert  right.  Gotta  make  it  so 
you  can  sleep  with  your  eyes  closed. 

WASTELAND.'"  A  new  role-playing  game  from 
the  creators  of  the  Bard's  Tale'"  series. 


3  WAYS  TO  ORDER:  1)  Visit  your  retailer.  2)  Call  800- 
245-4525  from  U.S.  or  Canada,  8am  to  5pm  PSTto 
order  by  VISA/MC.  3)  Mail  check  (U.S.S)  orVISA/MC 
#,  cardholder  name,  and  exp.  date  to  Electronic  Arts 
Direct  Sales,  R  O.  Box  7530,  San  Mateo,  CA  94403. 
Apple  II  version  $49.95,  Commodore  version  $39.95, 
plus  $3  shipping/handling.  CA  residents  add  6.5% 
sales  tax.  Allow  1-3  weeks  for  U.S.  delivery. 


"-''-■  '.-'Wtit'tV*: 


ELECTRONIC  ARTS" 

Apple  II  is  a  registered  trademark  of  Apple  Computer,  Inc. 
Commodore  is  a  registered  trademark  of  Commodore  Business 
Machines  Ltd. 


Commodore 


M        A         G        A        Z 

AUGUST  1988,   \blume  9.  Number  8 


N 


FEATURES 


BEST  OF  AMIGA  PUBLIC  DOMAIN  SOFTWARE  54 

Don  your  black  tie  and  tails  and  join  us  for  this  gala  awards 
ceremony.  Our  expert  picks  the  top  Amiga  public  domain  games, 
utilities,  terminal  programs,  and  sound  and  graphics  demos  and 
welcomes  the  first  inductees  into  the  Amiga  PD  Hall  of  Fame. 
by  Graham  Kinsey 

TROY  LYNDON:  DEFENDER  OF  THE  COMMODORE 
CROWN  58 

At  the  ripe  old  age  of  23,  Troy  Lyndon  has  seen  the  software 
industry  undergo  major  changes  while  he's  contributed  to  its 
growth.  Meet  Troy  and  find  out  why  he's  committed  to  producing 
games  for  the  Commodore  64. 
by  John  Jermaine 


COVER  STORY 

MAGIC'S  MAJESTY  IN  ADVENTURE  GAMES  50 

From  Adventure \o  Zork,  all  adventure  games  incorporate  some 
magic  for  the  player  to  perform.  Knowing  how  (and  when)  to  cast 
spells,  mix  potions  and  wave  wands  can  take  an  adventurer  far. 
Magic's  secrets  are  revealed  in  this  compendium  of  conjuring. 
by  Russ  Ceccola 


COVER  PHOTO:  Dennis  Degnan 

Computer  Graphics:  Louis  Johnson 

Software:  Photon  Paint  by  Microlllusions 

Video  Wall  courtesy  of  AV  Unlimited,  Inc.,  Philadelphia 


DEPARTMENTS 

LETTERS 
NEWS 

TIPS  &  TRICKS 

Hints  for  Fun  and  Utility 

Compiled  by  Louis  F.  Sander 
Gold  Mine 

Compiled  by  Lows  F.  Sander 

64  AND  128  SOFTWARE  REVIEWS 

California  Games  by  John  Jermaine 

Sub  Battle  Simulator  by  Gary  V.  Fields 

Postcards  by  Mark  Cotone 

geoDex  by  Jim  Esch 

Eternal  Dagger  by  Russ  Ceccola 

Superstar  Soccer  by  Scott  A.  May 

AMIGA  SOFTWARE  REVIEWS 

Zoom!  by  Russ  Ceccola 
Ferrari  Formula  One  by  Steve  King 
Publisher  Plus  by  En/in  Bobo 
Photon  Paint  by  Steve  King 
Fire  Power  by  Gary  V.  Fields 
Custom  BBS  by  JefteryS.  Hall 

BOOK  REVIEWS 

Electronic  Battlefield  byShayAddams 

WORTHWHILE  IMPOSTERS 

Class  of  III  Compute  by  Howard  Millman 


4 

8 

12 
16 


18 
20 
22 
24 
26 
28 


30 
32 

34 
35 
38 
40 

42 

44 


ADVENTURE  ROAD 

Infocom  Goes  Graphic  byShayAddams 

PROJECTS 

Monitor  Projects  by  John  lovine 

PUMPING  GEOS 

BeckerBASIC  by  Mark  Jordan 

INSIDE  Q-L1NK 

Help  with  the  Basics  by  Robert  W.  Baker 

PROGRAMMING 

5ita[ahex  by  Mike  Lewis 
Tempered  Fun  by  Paul  R.  Machuia 
Article  Cataloger  by  Chris  Stoy 

128  MODE 

Foolproof-Files  by  Mark  Jordan 

AMIGA  UPDATE 

Video  Editing  by  Matthew  Leeds 

Amiga  Public  Domain  by  Graham  Kinsey 

AmigaBASIC  Tutorial  by  Tim  Jones 

HOW  TO  ENTER  PROGRAMS 

MAGAZINE  ENTRY  PROGRAMS 

ADVERTISERS'  INDEX 


46 
48 
62 
66 


68 
70 
74 


78 

82 

84 
87 

108 

110 

112 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE    3 


LETTERS 


To  the  Editor 

So  Dale  Davis  (Letters,  May  1988)  is 
over  40  and  hates  change.  How  Sad!  I  am 
75  and  I  love  change.  I  may  be  older  in 
years  than  Dale,  but  I  am  mentally 
younger. 

There  is  an  ancient  Chinese  parable 
that  goes  like  this: 

The  all-powerral  Emperor  called  in  all 
the  Empire's  magicians  and  wise  men. 
When  they  were  assembled,  he  said,  "I 
want  to  know  the  one  indisputable  fact 
that  was  true  yesterday,  is  true  today,  and 
will  be  true  tomorrow.  Five  words,  no 
more,  no  less.  You  have  three  months  to 
bring  that  fact  to  me.  Succeed  and  you 
shall  have  riches,  failure  means  death." 

Three  months  later,  they  met  again, 
and  the  Emperor  called  for  the  answer. 
The  magicians  and  the  sages  unfurled  a 
tapestry  upon  which  were  the  words:  "And 
This  Too  Shall  Change." 
E.  Stuart  Johnson 
Athens,  AL 

To  the  Editor: 

Please  do  us  all  a  favor  and  tell  your 
Amiga  Public  Domain  writer,  Graham 
Kinsey  to  wake  up  and  smell  the  coffee. 

His  review  in  the  Amiga  Public  Domain 
Update  (April  1988),  while  pretty  thor- 
ough, featured  an  article  about  a  PD  pro- 
gram called  "NAG"  in  which  he  [said], 
" . .  .Nag  can  serve  as  an  adequate  substi- 
tute for  your  wife,  mother  or  whoever . . ." 

Does  Mr.  Kinsey  really  believe  that 
NAGS  are  not  only  predominantly  fe- 
male, but  can  be  "adequately  substituted" 
by  a  program  that  pesters  you  to  tend  it 
ASAP? 

Mr.  Kinsey,  DO  have  another  cup  of 
Java,  no  make  that  a  third  cup,  no,  how 
about  a  Danish  with  it,  no,  yes,  c'mon, 
(how  'm  I  doin',  Mr.  Kinsey,  after  all,  f  am 
both  a  wife  and  mother. . .) 
L.  Balvin 
Papaikou.HI 


To  the  Editor: 

This  is  in  response  to  a  letter  by  Carl 
Poland,  printed  in  the  June  issue  of  Com- 
modore Magazine.  The  letter  concerned 
my  review  of  Xetec's  FontMaster  128, 
which  appeared  in  the  April  issue  of  this 
magazine.  I  fee!  Mr.  Poland  is  in  error  on 
several  points. 

My  assertion  that  FontMaster  128  is 
"absolutely"  the  best  word  processor  avail- 
able for  the  128  was  my  opinion.  Obvious- 
ly not  everyone  has  to  agree.  But  in  my 
opinion,  FontMaster  128  offers  the  best 
editing  and  printing  functions  of  any  word 
processor  for  the  128. 

As  for  Mr.  Poland's  complaint  that  Font- 
Master 128  does  not  preview  in  80  col- 
umns {contrary  to  my  claim),  I  suggest  he 
read  pages  61-62  in  the  manual.  True,  the 
preview  shows  only  53  columns  at  one 
time,  but  a  single  keystroke  allows  the 
user  to  view  the  rest  of  the  page.  A  full  80- 
column  graphic  print  preview  is  available 
with  hardly  any  effort. 

Finally,  I  have  not  been  able  to  dupli- 
cate Mr.  Poland's  problems  when  exiting 
preview  mode.  I  suggest  he  double-check 
the  word  processor's  setup  screen  and 
again  refer  to  pages  61-62  in  the  manual. 
FontMaster  128  will  not  work  with  certain 
fast  load  cartridges,  such  as  Mach  128,  so 
this  should  also  be  considered. 

Nothing  beats  word  processing  on  the 
128,  a  system  that  has  been  blessed  with 
some  of  the  finest  productivity  programs 
on  the  market  (at  any  price).  For  true 
word  processing  junkies,  the  perfect  soft- 
ware does  not  exist.  But  in  my  opinion, 
FontMaster  128  offers  the  best  value. 
Scott  A.May 
Columbia,  MO 

To  the  Editor: 

I  thought  that  your  publication  would 
be  interested  in  knowing  about  an  Amiga 
training  school  here  in  the  Phoenix  area. 
They  offer  courses  in  desktop  publishing, 
music,  business  programs  like  WordPer- 
fect, MaxiPlan  and  Analyze,  graphics  pro- 
grams like  Videoscape  3D,  DPaint  U, 
Digi-Paint,  Photon  Paint,  Deluxe  Video, 
and  others.  I  believe  this  is  the  first  school 
of  its  kind  for  Amiga  users  and  your  read- 
ers would  love  to  hear  about  it. 
Sincerely, 
Patrick  Mondout 
Mesa,AZ 

Editor's  Response;  Thanks  for  bringing 
this  to  our  attention.  Interested  leaders  can 
contact  Ken  Costello,  4636  E.  Elwood, 
Suite  #6,  Phoenix,  AZ  85040  for  more  in- 
formation. 


Commodore 


M       A       G       A       Z       I       N 

Publisher 
Julie  Bauer 

Assistant  to  the  Publisher 
Amanda  K.  Wappes 


Managing  Editor 
Jim  Gracely 

Assistant  Editor 
Susan  R.  West 

Assistant  Technical  Editor 
Mike  Rivers 


Art  Director 
Gwenn  Knapp 

Assistant  Art  Director 
Wilson  Harp 

Art  Production 
Bob  Clark 

Production  Manager 
Jo-Ellen  Temple 


Circulation 

Kenneth  F.  Battista 

Advertising  Coordinator 

Rebecca  Cotton  Leister 


Advertising  Representatives 

SOUTHEAST,  SOUTHWEST  ANDWESTCOAST 

Warren  Langer,  Spencer  0.  Smith 

Warren  Langer  Associates 

9320  NW  2nd  Street 

Coral  Springs,  FL  33071 

Advertising  Inquiries  Only 

305/753-4124 

MIDWEST,  NORTHEAST  AND  CANADA 
Pamela  Stockham 

700  River  Rood 

Fair  Haven,  NJ  07704 

201/741-5784 


Commodore  Magazine,  Volume  9,  Number  8.  August 
1988, 

Commodore  Magazine  is  published  monthly  by  Commo- 
dore Magazine  Inc.,  1200  Wilson  Drive.  West  Chester.  PA 
19380.  U.S.A.  U.S.  subscriber  rate  is  $35.40  per  year; 
Canadian  subscriber  rate  is  $45.40  per  year;  Overseas  sub- 
scriber rate  is  $65,00  per  year.  Questions  concerning  sub- 
scription should  be  directed  to  Commodore  Magazine  Sub- 
scription Department,  Box  651,  Holmes,  Pennsylvania 
19043.  Phone  (8001  345-8112.  In  Pennsylvania  (800) 
662-2444.  Copyright  @  1988  by  Commodore  Magazine  Inc. 
Alt  rights  reserved. 

CBM,  PET,  VIC  20,  and  Commodore  64  are  registered 
trademarks  of  Commodore  Electronics  Ltd.  Super  PET  and 
Commodore  128  are  trademarks  of  Commodore  Electronics 
Ltd.  Amiga*  is  a  registered  trademark  of  Commodore-Amiga. 

ABC  Membership  applied  for. 


4    AUGUST  1988 


THE  NAME  OF  THE  GAME  IS  SURVIVAL. 


n  Vietnam,  an  American 
soldier  soon  learned  that 
there  were  no  winners  in 
this  deadly  game.  To  survive 
each  mission  with  his  morale 
and  sanity  intact,  and  return 
to  base  safely,  was  all  he 
could  hope  for.  This  was  cap- 
tured in  the  award-winning 
film,  Platoon. 

In  Data  East's  Platoon, 
you  will  experience  the  full 
impact  of  the  film  as  you  lead 
your  platoon  into  the  jungles, 
villages,  bunkers,  foxholes, 
and  underground  tunnels 


••esttf  _■»•  Jim. 


Svjlf '^1 


ami 
■ 


Wr& 


of  war-torn  Southeast  Asia. 
There  you  will  encounter 
guerilla  fighters,  snipers, 
booby-trapped  trip  wires, 
armed  patrols,  and  napalm 

iair  strikes.  You  must  pick  up 
food,  medical  supplies,  and 
ammunition  along  the  way. 
At  times,  the  odds  may 
seem  insurmountable.  But 
don't  think  about  winning  - 
to  survive  is  enough. 

FOR  COMMODORE  64/128m 
AND  AMIGA1:  ATARI* ST, 
APPLE  II  SERIES®  AND  IBM? 


®  BEAST 


DATA  EAST  USA,  INC. 

470  NEEDLES  DR.,  SAN  JOSE,  CA  95112.  (408)286-7074. 

LICENSED  BY  GAME  DESIGN  «  198?  OCEAN  SOFTWARE  LTD,  PLATOON:  TH  & 

<S  I 93$  HEMDALE  fILM  CORP.  ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED. 
COMMODORE.  APPLE.  ATARI.  IBM.  AND  OCEAN  ARE  REGISTERED 

I  TRADE  MARKS  Of  COMMODORE  ELECTRONICS  LTD. .  APPLE 

COMPUTERS.  INC..  ATARI  CORP. .  IBM  CORP  .  AND  OCEAN 
®  SOFTWARE  LTD.  RESPECTIVELY. 


,**t??*3W 


.   J^ 


DON'T  SETTLE  FOR  LESS— 


154111  DISK  DRIVE $169.95 

1 802C  MONITOR $1 89.00 

64C  w/154111  Drive S333 

64C  W/SW41  Drive S279 

180ZC  with  either  package S184 


r<    ()  M  m  o  n  n  K  I 


1 128K  Memory 

I  Built  in  1571  Disk  Drive 

I  Detatchable  Keyboard 


128Dw/10B4  Monitor S719 

128D  w/Samsung  RGB  Monitor $638 


FOR  ALL  YOUR  AMIGA 
NEEDS  ... 
CALL 


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512K  RAM  Upgrade $159 

1010  EXT  DRIVE $219 

1680  MODEM $139 


TUSSEY'S  SPECIAL  PACKAGES 


GAME  GALLERY 


ACCESS 

Echolon $27.95 

Leader  Board $22.95 

Leader  Board  Touin.  Disk  $13.95 

ACCOLADE 

Apolb18 S19.9S 

Comics $19.95 

4th  &  Inches $19.95 

Hard  Ball $19.95 

Killed  Until  Dead S12.9S 

Mimpult $19.95 

Test  Drive $19.95 

ACTIONS  OFT 

Thunder  Chopper $19.95 

Up  Periscope $17.95 

ACT1VISION 

lENTERTAINMENT  SOFTWARE 

Air  Rally $19.95 

Aliens $22.95 

Gamemaker  Package 

with  all  Library* $39.95 

Last  Ninja $22.95 

Maniac  Mansion $24.95 

Music  Studio $19.95 

Shanghai.... $19.95 

AVALON  HILL 

NBA $27.95 

BRODERBUND 

Lode  Runner $22.95 

Moebius $27.95 

Superb  ike  Challenge $14.95 

Ultima  V $39.95 

CINEMAWARE 

Defender  o(  the  Crown $22.95 

King  of  Chicago $32.95 

SDI $27.95 

The  Three  Stooges $27.95 

COSMI 

Def  Con  5 $17.95 

DATA  EAST 

Commando $14.95 

Karate  Champ $14.95 

KidNiki $19.95 

Speed  Buggy $17.95 

Dafaljoft' 

Alt  Reality/Dungeon $27.95 

Hunt  For  Red  October $27.95 

Video  Title  Shop $19.95 


tee 


ft  Digital 
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Y.lnt. 


Pocket  Writer  2 $39.95 

Pocket  Filer  2 $37.95 

Pocket  Planner  2 $37.95 

Digital  Supsrpak $64.95 

Dictionary $12,95 


ELECTRONIC  ARTS" 

Bard's  Tale $24.95 

Bard's  Tale  II $27.95 

Chessmaster  2000 $26.95 

Demon  Stalkers $19.95 

Dragon's  Lair $19.95 

EOS(Erth  Orbit  Slal'n}  $19.95 

Instant  Music $22.95 

Legacy  ol  it™  Ancients  $19.95 

Marble  Madness $19.95 

Master  Ninja $24.95 

Monopoly $24.95 

Outrageous  Pages $34.95 

PHM  Pegasus $19.95 

Roadwars $24.95 

Rockford $22.95 

SkaleorOte  $19,95 

Sky  Fox  II $19.95 

Strike  Fleet $19.95 

WorldTourGoH $19.95 

YeagerAFT $24.95 


Educational  Software  too! 

All  Games  stocked  for  quick  ship!!! 


FIREBIRD 

Elite $17.95 

Guild  of  Thieves $22,95 

Knight  ORC $24.95 

Star  Glider $24.95 

The  Sentry $24.95 

Championship  Football  ....$24.95 

GBA  Basketball  2  on  2 $22.95 

Top  Fuel  Eliminator $t  7.95 

INFOCOM 

Beyond  Zork $26.95 

Hitchhiker's  Guide $14.95 


LANCE  HAFNER  for  the 
beat  Jn  iport*  flr»Ccc  •ImuUilon 

3in1  Football $29.95 

Bklbafl,  the  Pro  Game  .$29.95 
Final  Four  Basketball  ...$29.95 
Full  Count  Baseball $29.95 


MICROLEAGUE 

Baseball $24.95 

Wrestling $19.95 

MKXO  PROSE 

Airborne  Rangers $24.95 

F-15  Strike  Eagle $21  95 

Gunship $21.95 

Kennedy  Approach $14.95 

NATO  Commander $22.95 

Pirates $23.95 

Silent  Service $21 .95 

Solo  Flight $14.95 

Stealth  Fighter $24.95 


W 

M1NDSCAPE 

Gauntlet !. $24.95 

Indoor  Sports $19.95 

Infiltrator  II $19.95 

Paperboy $22.95 

Perfect  Score:SAT  prep  ...$44.95 

Superstar  Hockey $22.95 

UchiMata $17,95 

Urdium $17.95 

SIMON  &  SHUSTER 

Star  Trek:  PromelhianAdv$24.95 
Typing  Tutor  IV $24.95 

SPECTRUM  HOLOBYTE 

Falcon $22.95 

Intrigue $19.95 

PT109..... $24.95 

Soko  Ban  $17.95 

SOFTWARE  SIMULATNS 

Football $19.95 

Pure  Stat  Baseball $24.95 

Pure  Stat  College  BB $24.95 

SSI 

B-24 $22.95 

Eternal  Dagger $24.95 

Phantasie  I.  Ill  (each) $24.95 

Realms  of  Darkness $24.95 

Rings  ol  Zillin S24.95 

Roadwat  Europa $24.95 

Shard  ol  Spring $24.95 

Wargame  Const  Set $1 9.95 

SUBLOG1C 

Flight  Simulator  II $32.95 

Jot $27.95 

Slealth  Mission $34.95 


128? 

SOFTWARE 


WORD  PROCESSORS 

Fleet  System  4 $49.95 

Font  Master  12S $39.95 

Paperclip  H $54.95 

Paperclip  III $39.95 

Superscript  128 $44.95 

Term  Paper  Wriler $29.95 

Wrdwriter  128  w/spell  .$34.95 

SPREADSHEETS 

Swiftcalc  128  w/sdwys  $39.95 

DATA  RASES 

Data  Manager  128 $34.95 

Perfect  Filer $44.95 

Superbase  128 $49.95 

MISC.  128  SOFTWARE 

Accountant  Inc  . ..$59.95 

CMS  Acct  Pkg/128  ...$124.95 

Mach  128 $34.95 

Partner  128 $39.95 

Sylvia  Porter's  Personal 
Finance  Planner $44.95 


EPYX 

500  XJ  Joystick 

California  Games 
Champ'ship  Wrestling 
Create  a  Calendar 

Destroyer 

4x4  Oil-Road  Racing 
L.  A.  Crackdown 

$14.95 
$24.95 
$14.95 
$17.95 
$22.95 
.SCALL 
$24,95 
$12.95 
1  $24.95 
.$24.95 
.$CALL 
$22.95 
$14.95 
$14.95 
$14.95 
S24.95 

Street  Sports  Baseba 

SI  Sports  Basketball . 
Street  Sports  Soccer 
Sub  Batik* 

Summer  Games 

64C  BUSINESS  AND  PRODUCTIVITY 


64C  DATABASES 

Bank  Street  Frier $24.95 

Data  Manager  II $19.95 

64C  INTEGRATED  PKGS 

Vizaslar  64  4K $24.95 

64C  SPREADSHEETS 

Swiftcalc  64  w/sideways  ..$17.95 
Sideways.... $14.95 

64C  WORD  PROCESSORS 

Bank  Slreet  Writer $29,95 

Font  Master  II $29.95 

Paperclip  w/spellpack $32.95 

Paperclip  III $39.95 

Pocket  Writer  Dictionary  ..$12.95 
Word  Writer  III $34.95 


FINANCIAL  &  ACCT. 

Timewks  Electr.  Checkbk. $17.95 

Timeworks  Money  Mgr $17.95 

CMSAcdPkg/64,.., $119.95 

MISC.  HARDWARE 

Estes  pwr  supply  for  C-64  $54.95 
Naverone  3  Slot  expder ...  $24.95 
UTILITIES 

Thinking  Cap S24.95 

Toy  Shop  S24.95 

Fast  Load S24.95 

Bob's  Term  Pro  S32.95 


Abacus 


Batteries  Included 

Paperclip  Publisher $39.95 

Berkeley  Softworks 

GEO  Publish $44.95 

ISroderbund 

Graphics  Library  I, II  or  III  .$16.95 

Print  Shop $25,95 

Electronics  Arts 

Outrageous  Pages $34.95 

Springboard 

Certificate  Maker $29.95 

Clip  Art  I  or  III $19.95 

Newsroom. $19.95 

Timeworks 

Desktop  Publisher $39.95 

Unison  World 

Printmaster  Plus $24.95 


TUSSEY  COMPUTER  PRODUCTS 


P.O.BOX  1006,  STATE  COLLEGE,  PA  16804 


...ten  SHIP^  IT 


PRINTERS 


Panasonic, 

Office  Automaiion^VJl 
2  yr  warranty  Un 

1080JII  ....$164.95 
1091  ill  ....$199.00 
10921 $319.00 

.IL 


mitrenni- 


NX-1000 

(144  drafl/36  NLQ)  ...$169.95 

NX  1000  Rainbow 

(color  printer)  $229.95 

NX-1000C 

(Commodore  Ini'(ace)  $174.95 
NX-1000C  Rainbow 
(Commodore  Interface/ 
Color  Printer)  $229.95 

SEIKOSHA 


2  yr  warranty 

SP-180VC  ....$139.00 
SP-1200VC....$CALL 

SP-1200  Al  ...$169.00 

120cps,  NLQ  Mode 

©CITIZEN 


120D $169.95 

180D $CALL 

MSP-40 $319.95 

Tribute  224 $679.95 


OKIDATA180 
$229 

■  Built  in  COMMODORE* 
and  EPSON'Interlace 

■  180  CPS  Print  Speed 
Call  Far  Other  Okidala  Punters 


l    I  i  m  M  i )  1 1  ( l  K   I 

AMIQ 

FOR  ALLYOUR  AMIGA 
NEEDS...  CALL tcp 

AMIGA  SOFTWARE 

productivity  ■r^r^nr^r^ranrBraraararar^r^r^ranr^ 

Deluxe  Music  Const  Sei   ..$79.95    Logislix SB9.00 

DaluitB  Paint  II S99.95    Superbase SS9.00 

Deluxe  Print  It $59.95    Vizawrite $89.00 

Deluxe  Video  1.2 $99.95    WordPerfect ...SCALL 

Draw  Plus $189,00 

entertainment  mmt^mmms^ami^^miB^^^^ 


Balance  ol  Power $29.98 

Bards  Tale $39  95 

Beyond  Zork  , $37.95 

Chessmastet  2000 $34,95 

Defender  of  Ihe  Crown $29 ,95 

Deja  Vu $29.95 

Earl  Weaver  Baseball $39.95 

Ferrari  Formula  One $39.95 

Flight  Simulator  It ..,$39.95 

Hailey  Project $29.95 


Hot-Cold  JSlZZ $24.95 

Leisure  Suit  Larry $44,95 

Marble  Madness $34.95 

Racier $27.95 

S.D.I $29.95 

Silent  Service $29.95 

Sintjad $29.95 

Starfleat  I $39.95 

Univited S29.95 


51 2K  RAM  Upgrade..  $159.00 

1010  EXT  DRIVE $219.00 

1680  MODEM $139.00 


NEW  LOWER  PRICES !! 

SUPER  GRAPHIX  JR 

$32.95       AV«wV 
.$29.95               i          i 

w/Printer  from  Tussey 

SUPER  GRAPHIX 

Interface  w/SK  buffer 

down  loadable  fonts 

w/Printer  from  Tussey 

1        ^ 

1    w  ,.,„,».,         r-i. 

$54.95     1  bb         -•  •  J 
.$49.95                                     k 

SUPER  GRAPHIX  GOLD 

w/Printer  from  Tussey 

IV 
.$94.95    ira-BrB'B-BararJ  Ik 

$84.95  — ■■"■TJ 

RGB/COMPOSITE  COLOR  MONITORS  FOR  THE  128 
COMMODORE  1084 

64  G  x  400  Resolution 


4  Operating  Modes 

MAGNAVOX  8762 

$4C  x  240  Resolution 
3  Modes.  1  yr  warranty 

THOMSON  4120 

56Cx  240  Resolution 
a  Modes  1  y  warranty 


.3299.00 


$249.00 


.$219.00 

All  3  monitors  include  cables  to  Commodore  128 


|1  Berkeley 
1  ISoftworks 

NEW!!...  GEO  PUBLISH  (64/1 28)... 

....$44.95 

GEOS  128 $44.95      GEOS 

Geo  Calc  128 $44.95      Geo  Calc 

$36.95 
$31.95 

Geo  File  128 S44.95      Geo  File 

$31.95 

Geo  Programmer  ..$47.95      Geodex 

Deskpaek  128 $44.95      Deskpack 

Geo  Write  128 $44.95      Fontpack 

Geo  Spell $22,95      Geo  Write 

$24.95 

$21.95 

$19.95 

S31  .flfi 

Software  orders  over  $100  and 
Accessories  under  6  pounds  will 
be  shipped  Federal  Express 

(Even  at  Shese  prices)  You  only  pay  TCP's  standard 
shipping  charge  of  $4,00  per  order.  Orders  arriving 
before  3:00  PM  our  time  will  be  shipped  out  same 
day.  If  part  of  your  order  is  backordered  the  remain- 
der will  be  shipped  UPS  Ground  FREE! 

SECURITY 

■  Your  Credit  Card  is  not  charged  until  your 
order  is  shipped. 

■  We  insure  your  order  at  no  extra  cost  to  you, 

■  Tussey  is  a  financially  strong  and  well 
established  company. 

CUSTOMER  SUPPORT 

■  After  sales  support. 

■  Knowledgeable  staff,  all  graduates  of 
Tussey's  "Computer  Boot  Camp". 

■  Our  advanced  warehouse/materials 
handling  system  assures  your  order  is 
shipped  out  accurately  &  on  time. 

■  Our  IBM  5360  allows  instant  order  and  inventory  status. 

To  order  by  mall:  We  accept  money  order,  certified  cneck.  personal  check. 

Allow  2  weeks  for  personal  &  company  checks  lo  clear  Shipping:  $400  lor 

soltware.FOa  ALL  HAHDWARF  AND  AfJV  ACCESSORY  OVER  ffibj  Call  our 

Toll  Free  Number  1 -600-468-9044  lor  shipping  charges.   Add  $3.00  per  OOx 

siiippedCOD.  Additional  shipping  required  on  APO,  FPO.AK,  HI,  and  foreign 

orders.  Terms:  PRICES  REFLECT  CASH    DISCOUNT,  ADD  1.9%  FOR 

MASTERCARD  OR  VISA. 

ALL  SALES  ARE  FINAL 

Defective  items  replaced  or  repaired  at  our 

discretion.  Pennsylvania  residents  add  6% 

sales  tax.  Prices  and  terms  subject  lo  change  without  notice. 


VTit 


£ 


SAMSUNG 


RGB  MONITOR 

I  14"  Anti-Glare  Screen 
I  640  x  240  Resolution 
I  Tilt/Swivel 


only 


$199 


Panasonic 


lOSOill  Printer, 

■  144  cps  (dra 

■  NLQ  Mode 

■  2  yr  Warranty 


O  COMMODORE 

1670^ 

MODEM\ 


$79 


,-  COrWtOOORE 

1764 

256K  RAM 
EXPANSION 

$119 


C- COMMODORE 

1581 

3i/r  DISK  DRIVE 

$197 


CMS 


ACCOUNTING  SYSTEMS 
Pkg.  Price  for  all  Modules: 

C128  version $124.95 

C64  version $119.95 


DISK-KOUNTS 


per  box  Ot  10  3.50   5.25' 

BONUS        DSVDD  $16.95  56,95  I 
MAXELL      DS'DD  $17.35  $9.95 
VERBATIM  DSJDD  $19,95  $9,95 
SONY  DS/00  $16.95  $8.95 


Regular  Hrs:  S  :00AM-9 :00PM  Mon-Fri,  1O:OOAM-6:O0PM  Sat,  12:00PM-8:00PM  EST 


CALL  TOLL  FREE  1-800-468-9044 


FOR  INFORMATION  CALL  814-234-2236    FAX:  814-237-4450       m 


LtCi 


NEWS  •  NEWS  •  NEWS  •  NEWS  •  NEWS  •  NEWS  •  NEWS  *  NEWS 


COMDEX/Spring 


T 


wenty-five  third  party  hardware  and  software  developers 
convened  in  the  Commodore  booth  at  COMDEX/Spring  Atlanta  May 
9-12,  to  present  video,  publishing,  CAD,  business  and  educational 
applications  on  the  Amiga,  Among  those  present: 

•  NewTek  with  Digi-View  3.0:  new  features  include  overscan  for 
a  maximum  of  768  x  480  resolution,  half-brite  mode,  and  line  art 
mode.  For  details  contact:  NswTek,  Inc.,  115  W.  Crane  St.,Topeka,KS 
66603.  Phone:  (913)  354-1146. 

«  Oxxi,  Inc.  announced  the  availability  of  MaxiPlan  1.9.  The 
spreadsheet's  refinements  include  a  Blitter  option  which  allows  the 
user  to  add  a  second  color  in  the  border  or  data  area  of  a  chart. 
Registered  users  of  version  1.8  will  automatically  receive  the 
upgrade.  French  and  German  language  versions  of  MaxiPlan  are 
also  in  the  works.  For  further  information  contact:  Oxxi,  Inc.  3438 
Falcon  Ave.,  Long  Beach,  CA  90807.  Phone:  (213)  427-1227. 

•  Progressive  Peripherals  &  Software  announced  an  agreement 
with  ASDG,  Inc.  to  market  their  8MB  RAM  expansion  unit  for  the 
Amiga  2000,  ProBAM  2000.  Configurable  to  two,  four,  six  or  eight 
megabytes,  ProBAM  8000  has  a  suggested  retail  price  of  $399.95. 
For  details  contact:  Progressive  Peripherals  &  Software,  464 
Kalamath  St.,  Denver,  CO  80204.  Or  call:  (303)  825-4144. 


•  Electronic  Arts  previewed  DelnxePhotoLab,  a  paint  and  print 
program  for  the  Amiga  which  provides  more  colors,  larger  canvases, 
greater  graphic  capabilities  and  palette  manipulation  tools.  Users 
can  produce  graphics  in  any  Amiga  mode  (including  HAM)  up  to  10 
feet  by  10  feet  in  size  with  any  Amiga-supported  printer. 
DeluxePhotoLab  was  scheduled  for  release  in  July  at  a  retail  price 
of  1 149.99.  For  further  information  contact:  Electronic  Arts,  1820 
Gateway  Dr.,  San  Mateo,  CA  94404.  Phone:  (415)  571-7171. 

•  Haitex  Resources  announced  that  they  will  be  marketing  X-CAD 
(developed  by  D.K.-based  Taurus-Impex)  in  North  America.  X-CAD  is 
a  general-purpose  Amiga  CAD  program  for  architectural  and 
mechanical  designers.  The  program  uses  a  verb-noun-modifier 
command  structure  (e.g.,  DRAW  LINE  PERPENDICULAR).  X-CAD 
has  a  suggested  retail  price  of  S599,  For  further  details  contact: 
Haitex  Resources,  208  Carrollton  Park,  Suite  1207,  Carrollton,  TX 
75006.  Or  call:  (214)  241-8030. 

•  Future  Touch  directed  traffic  with  their  new  touch  screen 
system  on  the  Amiga  that  mapped  out  the  stations  in  the  Commodore 
booth.  Information  was  available  on  each  product  category, 
manufacturer  and  title  on  display.  For  details  contact:  Future  Touch, 
192  Laurel  Rd.,  E.  Northport,  NY  11731.  Phone:  (516)  757-7334. 

Other  Amiga  developers  represented  in  the  Commodore  booth 
included:  Associated  Computer  Services  with  Station  Manager; 
B.E.S.T.  with  version  3.0  of  B.E.8.T.  Business  Management] 
Brown-Wagh  Publishing  displayed  Zuma  Group's  WTEXT 1 . 1 1  and 


8    AUGUST  1988 


TV'SHOW  1.02;  Byte  by  Byte  showed  Sculpt-Animate  3D  with 
Computer  Systems  Associates'  68030  board;  Gold  Disk  with 
Professional  Page  version  1.1;  Microlllusions  showed  Photon 
Video  and  Photon  Paint  with  a  Tektronix  printer;  Software 
Visions,  Inc.  with  Microfiche  Filer;  SubLogic  with  Jet;  and 
WordPerfect  Corp.  demonstrated  WordPerfect  and  WordPerfect 
Library. 

•  Discovery  Software  introduced  a  new  version  of  their  best- 
selling  Arkanoid  with  33  new  levels  and  a  reduced  price  of  $29.95 
(down  from  $49.95).  Another  new  feature  allows  players  to  slow  the 
action  down  to  a  pace  they  can  handle.  Discovery  will  try  to 
implement  this  feature  on  subsequent  releases  as  well  for  younger 
players  or  those  with  physical  disabilities.  Discovery  was  also 
showing  their  latest  Amiga  release,  Zoom!  (see  review  on  page  30). 
In  addition,  they  are  now  providing  a  30-day  unconditional  money- 
back  guarantee  for 
Arkanoid  and  Zoom! 
purchasers.  For  more 
information  contact: 
Discovery  Software, 
163  Conduit  St., 
Annapolis,  MD  21401. 

Phone: 
(301)268-9877. 


Commodore  also  unveiled  its  new  Professional  Series  III  line  of 
MS-DOS-compatible  computers.  The  Commodore  PC10-III  and 
PC20-HI  are  both  IBM  XT-compatible  and  feature  built-in  graphics, 
color  and  mouse  support.  Both  new  models  include  one  internal 

5.25-inch  drive  and  640K 
RAM.  The  PC20-m  also 

__^- -'     I    includes  a  20MB  hard  disk 

^^["  '    drive.  The  PClO-m  retails 

forS999;thePC20-mfor 

J    '"" 


v-:""A 


NEWS  •  NEWS  •  NEWS  •  NEWS  •  NEWS  •  NEWS  •  NEWS  •  NEWS 


Amiga  Developers 
Conference 

jQJ,  the  Amiga  Developers  Conference  held  In  Washington,  D.C.  a 
week  prior  to  COMDEX,  Commodore  announced  that  600,000  Amigas 
had  been  shipped  worldwide.  Over  350  hardware  and  software 
developers  attended  the  three-day  conference  sponsored  by 
Commodore  Amiga  Technical  Support  (CATS).  The  Amiga 
development  community  has  produced  over  1100  software  programs 
for  the  Amiga  since  its  premier  three  years  ago  this  month.  Think 
about  it,  that's  more  than  a  program  a  day. 

The  Shadows  of  Mordor 

X  he  Shadows  of  Mordor  is  the  third  J.R.R.  Tolkien  adventure  for 
the  Commodore  64  from  Addison-Wesley  Publishing.  Adapted  from 
Book  P7  of  The  Two  Towers,  the  adventure  has  more  than  80 
locations  to  explore  in  a  quest  to  keep  the  Ring  from  the  Dark  Lord, 
Sauron.  The  package  includes  a  map  of  Middle-earth  and  a  guide  to 
Middle-earth  laws,  lore  and  language.  The  Shadows  of  Mordor 
retails  for  $29,95.  For  more  information  contact:  Addison-Wesley 
Publishing  Co,  Reading,  MA  01867.  Or  call:  (617)  944-3700. 

Accolade  Hits 

jQjQCOlade,  inc.  has  launched '  'All  Time  Favorites1 '  a  new  product 
line  of  their  entertainment  bestsellers.  Commodore  64  All  Time 
Favorites  include  HardBall!,  Ace  of  Aces,  Fight  Night,  and  Killed 
Until  Dead.  Each  title  will  be  priced  at  $14.95.  For  more 
information  contact:  Accolade,  Inc.,  550  S.  Winchester  Blvd.,  Suite 
200,  San  Jose,  CA  95128.  Phone:  (408)  985-1700. 


64 


1  rime  Artifax,  publisher  of  Australia's  popular  disk-based 
magazine  Suite  64,  is  making  their  product  available  in  North 
America.  The  5.25-inch  slice  of  Down  Under  features  entertainment, 
educational,  utilities  and  business  software  and  a  point-and-click 
menu  system.  Suite  64  is  available  for  $9.95  per  issue.  For  details 
contact:  Jonathan  Jager  International,  P.O.  Box  29874,  Richmond, 
VA  23229.  Phone:  (804)  262-8897. 


Alternate  Reality: 
The  City 


E 


lectronic  Arts  has  begun  shipping  Alternate  Reality:  The  City 

for  the  Amiga.  Developed  by  DataSoft,  the  program  is  the  first  in  a 
series  of  futuristic,  fantasy  role-playing  games.  This  episode  begins 
as  you  are  captured  by  aliens  who  leave  you  on  the  portal  of  The  City 
of  Xebec's  Demise.  Build  your  character's  personal  attributes  in 


Alternate  Reality:  The  City,  and  you  might  have  a  chance  of 
surviving  subsequent  installments  of  Alternate  Reality.  For  details 
contact:  Electronic  Arts,  1820  Gateway  Dr.,  San  Mateo,  CA  94404.  Or 
call:  (415)  571-7171. 


Fire  &  Forget 


1  itus  Software's  latest  release  is  Fire  &  Forget  for  the  Amiga.  The 
game  finds  the  world  on  the  brink  of  disaster;  to  save  it  you  must 
man  Thunder  Master,  the  ultimate  fighting  machine  for  the  nuclear 
age.  Fire  &  Forget  carries  a  suggested  retail  price  of  $39,95.  For 
more  information  contact:  Titus  Software  Corp.,  20432  Corisco  St., 
Chatsworth,  CA  91311.  Phone:  (818)  709-3693. 

IntroCAD  Upgrade 

Jtrogressive  Peripherals  4?  Software,  Inc.  has  released  version  2.0  of 
IntroCAD,  their  popular  Amiga  CAD  program.  Improvements 
include  the  ability  to  store  CAD  drawing  files  in  Aegis  Draw  format 
for  use  in  desktop  publishing  programs.  Printer  support  has  also 
been  expanded.  To  obtain  the  update,  IntroCAD  users  should  send 
their  original  disk  along  with  $10  (for  handling)  to:  Upgrade 
Department,  Progressive  Peripherals  &  Software,  Inc.,  464  Kalamath 
St.,  Denver,  CO  80204. 

Rocket  Ranger 

Uinemaware's  latest  "interactive  movie"  Rocket  Ranger  is  now 
playing  on  an  Amiga  near  you.  The  Nazis  have  won  WWII,  and  a 
group  of  21st  century  scientists  are  counting  on  you  (and  their  time 
travel  device)  to  change  the  course  of  history  and  save  mankind.  This 
melodramatic  plot  is  heightened  by  chapter  divisions  with  a 
cliffhanger  in  every  chapter.  Rocket  Ranger  retails  for  $49.95.  For 
more  information  contact:  Clnemaware  Corporation,  4165  Thousand 
Oaks  Blvd.,  Westlake  Village,  CA  91362.  Phone:  (806)  379-9401. 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE     9 


NEWS  •  NEWS  •  NEWS  •  NEWS  •  NEWS  •  NEWS  ■  NEWS  •  NEWS 


IViicro  Aided  Designs  has  released  version  2.0  of  T.H.I.S. 

(Technological  Highbred  Integrated  System)  for  the  Commodore 
128.  T.H.I.S.  enables  128  users  to  create  drawings  ranging  from 
architectural  drawings  and  mechanical  blueprints  to  banners,  signs 
and  greeting  cards.  The  program  has  a  maximum  virtual  screen 
resolution  of  960  x  536  pixels  per  page  and  up  to  seven  separate 
pages  to  draw  on.  For  details  contact:  Micro  Aided  Designs,  P.O.  Box 
1982,  Placentia.CA  92670. 


Free  Spirit  Releases 


F 


ree  Spirit  Software,  Inc.  has  released  another  collection  of 
adventure  games  on  one  disk.  Moffatt's  Adventure  Disk  #2 
contains  Temporal,  West,  Death  Valley,  and  The  Lighthouse.  The  disk 
is  available  for  $19.95  from:  Free  Spirit  Software,  Inc.,  905  W. 
Hillgrove,  Suite  6,  La  Grange.  IL  60525.  Phone:  (800)  552-6777, 


GLAREFREE 

V  isual  System  Developments  has  introduced  GLABEFBEE,  an 
aerosol  spray  that  reduces  UV-B  radiation  and  cuts  glare  and  static 
on  your  monitor.  The  spray  is  comprised  of  a  durable  polymer  that 
absorbs  UV-B  radiation  and  diffuses  glare;  additional  ingredients 
limit  static.  Supplied  in  a  3.2  ounce  aerosol  can,  one  application  of 
GLAKEFREE  provides  a  permanent  coating.  For  further 
information  contact:  Visual  System  Developments,  Inc.,  P.O.  Box  367. 
18265  S.  Midhill  Dr.,  West  Linn,  OR  97068.  Phone:  (503)  635-5948. 


Consumer  Electronics 
Information 

1  he  Consumer  Electronics  Group  of  the  Electronic  Industries 
Association  has  made  available  three  free  pamphlets  to  help 
consumers  get  the  most  out  of  their  consumer  electronics  products. 
The  three  pamphlets  are: '  'How  to  Save  Money  and  Take  Care  of  TVs, 
VCRs,  Camcorders,  Audio  Equipment,  Computers,  and  Other 
Electronic  Products,"  "How  to  Choose  and  Use  Accessories,"  and 
"How  to  Install,  Connect,  and  Expand  TVs,  VCRs.  Telephones,  Audio 
Systems,  and  other  Consumer  Electronic  Products,"  Single  copies  of 
the  pamphlets  can  be  obtained  from  EIA/CEG  by  sending  a  self- 
addressed  business-size  envelope  with  appropriate  postage  (Care 
Products  25<£  postage,  Accessory  Products  45*  postage,  Hookup  and 


Expansion  655  postage)  to:  Electronics  Industries  Association, 
Name  of  Pamphlet,  P.O.  Box  19100,  Washington,  D.C.  20036. 


Activision  Changes 


Ajct 


ctivision  has  moved  to  a  new  address  and  adopted  a  new 
corporate  name.  The  company,  now  known  as  Mediagenic  will 
continue  to  market  the  Activision  line  of  entertainment  software. 
Mediagenic's  new  address:  3885  Bohannon  Dr.,  Henlo  Park,  CA 
94025.  Phone:  (415)  329-0500. 


EA  to  Distribute  SSI 


E 


lectronic  Arts  has  announced  an  exclusive  distribution 
agreement  with  Strategic  Simulations,  Inc.,  publisher  of  strategic 
war  simulations  and  fantasy  games.  Under  the  agreement  Electronic 

Arts  has  made  a  minority 
investment  in  SSI  and  will 
distribute  upcoming  SSI  titles 
including  Advanced 
Dungeons  &  Dragons  in 
the  U.S.  and  Canada. 
"This  represents  the  largest 
affiliated  labels  deal  made  to 
date,"  said  Trip  Hawkins, 
president  of  Electronic  Arts. 
Hawkins  compares  himself 
and  Joel  Billings,  president 
of  SSI,  to  two  military 
generals,  "Both  Joel  and  I 
have  been  in  this  industry 
for  more  than  ten  years 
and  in  that  time  have  learned  that  in  some  situations  it  is  much 
more  effective  to  join  forces  and  make  your  advances  as  allies." 


Correction:  The  Hews  Section  in  the 
June  issue  of  Commodore  Magazine 
listed  an  incorrect  address  for  CW  Data 
Labs,  makers  of  Tisar  128.  The  correct 
information  is:  CW  Data  Labs,  1632  Napfle 
Ave.,  Philadelphia,  PA  191 11.  Phone: 
(800)  537-LABS. 


10    AUGUST  1988 


Sharpen  Your  Commodore™  Skills  While  You 
Build  a  Great  Software  Collection — 

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Reviewers  Love  LOADSTAR! 

" ...]  highly  recommend  Loadstar.  If  you  can  afford  only  one 

disk  service,  make  it  Loadstar, .." 

.. Steve  Leven,  Commodore  Microcomputers 

Subscribers  Love  LOADSTAR! 

"The  music  and  graphics  are  totally  superb.  Some  of  the  best 
1  have  ever  seen" Steven  T.  Boston 


LOADSTAR™  is  two  disks 
each  month  filled  with 
great  software  for  your 
Commodore  64  or  128. 

Learn  From  the  Experts 

Draw  on  the  vast  experience  of  our 
editors  to  provide  you  with  care- 
fully selected  software  you  can 
use  each  month,  from  spread- 
sheets to  role-playing  games, 
from  telecommunications  to 
accounting  to  recipe  programs. 
With  easy-to-use  documentation, 
you  will  master  each  new  application 
with  confidence  and  ease. 


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Without  investing  a  fortune,  LOADSTAR  will  help  you  to  see  why 
your  Commodore  64  or  128  is  the  most  versatile  and  powerful  tool 
you  own.  You  will  know  more  about  your  Commodore,  its  capabili- 
ties, and  software  for  it,  than  you  would  have  thought  possible.  At 
$6.65,  LOADSTAR  is  the  best  value  in  software  today. 

Try  our  Monthly  Software  for  Three  Months 

Every  month  your  postman  will  bring  you  the  latest  issue  of 
LOADSTAR,  contained  on  unprotected  5W  diskettes.  Each  issue  is 
chock-full  of  great  software,  including  utilities,  games,  home  and 
business  applications,  and  educational  programs.  Order  now  and  you 
will  receive  the  "Best  of  LOADSTAR"  absolutely  free. 


Commodore  6-1  ami  Commodore  128  tire  trademarks  of  Commodore  Business  Machines. 
Available  at  Waldenbvoks.  B.  Dalian  Booksellers,  and  fine  bookstores  everywhere  (cover  price  $9.95).  Apple  II  and  IBM  PC  versions  also  available, 


Contents  of  Issue  #49 


Power  Budget  Keep  track  of  your 
spending,  make  projections. 
Down,  Down,  Down  Can  you  survive 
six  levels  of  acid  mines? 
Robot  Rescue  As  Mandar  II,  rescue 
our  ambassadors  from  the  Vordax. 
Notepad  Two  text  screens  for  notes. 
Pop-DOS  LIST  one  BASIC  program 
from  another,  among  other  things. 
Cris-Cros  PokerPlay  10  hands  at  once. 
Plus  Chomp,  Animal,  Joystick  Art, 
Statistics  Analyzer,  Template  Maker, 
Invisible  Aid  128,  2  Potato,  and  more! 

(Available  as  a  Back  Issue) 


F"R  "FP  the  "Best  °f  LOADSTAR"~ a  collection  of 

*-  -IVJ-ii-i  fourteenofthebestprogramsfromrecentis- 

sues — when  you  order  the  next  3  issues  of  LOADSTAR  for 

your  Commodore  64  family  computer. 

Below  are  the  programs  on  the  "Best  of  LOADSTAR:" 


Sidel 

Diskovery 
LOADSTAR  Forum 

DiskWriter 
Submission  Form 

Sector  Editor 

BASIX  64  &  128 

Zorphon 


Side  2 

Puzzle  Maker 

File  Viewer 

Star  Terminal 

Banner 

Jump! 

Towers  of  Hanoi 

Yahtzee 


Your  Satisfaction  Guaranteed 

If  you  are  not  satisfied  with  your  purchase  for  any  reason,  return  vour 
first  issue  for  a  full  519.95  refund,  The  "Best  of  LOADSTAR"  is  yours  to 
keep.  You  can't  lose. 


"V/«  c  I  Please  rush  my  free  "Best  of  LOADSTAR"  and  start 
1C5«  my  three  month  subscription  to  LOADSTAR  for  my 
Commodore  64  or  1 28  for  only  $19.95  postage  paid.  I  understand 
that  this  is  a  trial  subscription  and  that  I  am  under  no  obligation 
to  continue  beyond  three  months.  (Canada/Mexico  $24.95, 
Overseas  $27.95)  Make  checks  payable  in  U.S.  funds. 


Name 


Address 

City 

Telephone 


State 


ZIP+4 


-IVISA/MC        UAmEx 


Card# 


□  Payment  Enclosed 
_  Exp.  Date 


Call  Toll  Free  1-800-831-2694 

(Louisiana  Residents  add  4%  Sales  Tax)  CO088 

SOFTDISK  Inc   •    P.  O.  Box  30008    •    Shreveport,  LA  71130-0008 


Compiled  by  Louis  F.  Sander 


This  month  we  feature  some  very  useful  tips  forgetting  the 
most  from  Commodore's  Magazine  Entry  Programs,  plus 
numerous  submissions  that  were  sent  to  me  on  Q-Link.  As  we've 
mentioned  before,  you  can  send  your  tips  by  Q-Link  E-Mail  to 
LFS.  Be  sure  to  include  your  full  name  and  address,  since  we 
have  no  way  of  sending  cliecks  by  E-Mail! 

If  you'd  rather  send  your  treasures  on  paper,  put  each  of  them 
on  a  separate  sheet  (preferably  typed),  with  your  name  and  ad- 
dress on  each  one,  and  mail  them  to: 
Louis  F.  Sander 
P.O.Box  101011 
Pittsburgh,  PA  15237 

Slow  listing:  If  you  know  this  one,  you  think  everybody  knows  it. 
If  you  don't  know  it,  you  think  it's  a  miracle. 

To  slow  down  the  listing  of  programs  or  directories,  press  the 
CTRL  key  in  64  mode  or  the  COMMODORE  key  in  128  mode. 
Unfortunately,  this  trick  won't  work  in  CP/M  mode. 
Sebastian  Camberos  P. 
La  Paz,  Bolivia 

Label  the  programs  you  type:  I  have  a  very  large  collection  of 
programs  from  this  column  and  from  computer  magazines  in 
general.  The  programs  almost  always  had  an  accompanying  ar- 
ticle that  explained  them  or  gave  useful  information  about  their 
use.  Unfortunately,  it's  very  difficult  to  remember  where  I  got 
most  of  the  programs,  so  I'm  out  of  luck  when  I  want  to  go  back 
to  the  original  source. 

lb  get  around  the  problem,  I  now  record  the  source  of  every 
program  whenever  I  type  it  in.  I  put  a  REM  statement  in  an  un- 
used line  number  at  the  very  start  of  each  program.  The  REM 
consists  of  the  magazine  name,  the  month,  the  year  and  the 
page  number  of  the  original  article. 

Like  most  such  useful  habits,  I  wish  Td  started  doing  this 
years  ago. 
Don  Halloran 
Bloomfleld,NJ 

128  Magazine  Entry  Program  tip:  If  you've  typed  in  a  Commo- 
dore Magazine  program  without  using  the  Magazine  Entry  Pro- 
gram, it's  not  too  late  to  gain  the  benefits  of  automatic  proof- 
reading. Just  redefine  Function  Key  1  by  executing 
KEY1,CHR$(27)  +  "K"' 


Then  list  a  section  of  the  program.  For  each  line,  type  Fl  and 
the  checksum.  When  you  press  RETURN,  the  Magazine  Entry 
Program  will  do  its  thing. 
IMD  Walrus 
Q-Link 

Improving  the  Magazine  Entry  Program:  Each  issue  of  Com- 
modore Magazine  includes  two  Magazine  Entry  Programs  on  its 
final  pages — one  for  the  64  and  another  for  the  128.  By  auto- 
matically detecting  typing  mistakes,  the  Magazine  Entry  Pro- 
grams make  it  easier  to  type  the  other  programs  that  are  print- 
ed in  the  magazine. 

In  addition  to  appearing  in  Commodore  Magazine  each 
month,  the  Magazine  Entry  Programs  are  available  on  Q-Link 
and  from  many  user  groups  and  bulletin  boards. 

When  a  printed  program  is  set  up  for  use  with  a  Magazine 
Entry  Program,  each  of  its  lines  ends  with  an  apostrophe  fol- 
lowed by  a  checksum  of  four  letters.  (Due  to  the  shortness  and 
simplicity  of  the  programs  in  "Tips  &  Tricks,"  we  seldom  provide 
the  checksums  here.  They  are,  however,  provided  for  almost  ev- 
ery other  program  in  the  magazine.) 

When  you  load  and  run  one  of  the  Magazine  Entry  Programs, 
it  puts  a  machine  language  program  in  memory.  You  then  ex- 
ecute a  SYS  statement  to  activate  the  machine  language  pro- 
gram and  a  NEW  command  to  remove  the  Magazine  Entry  Pro- 
gram itself. 

Once  the  SYS  has  been  executed,  the  invisible  machine  lan- 
guage program  carefully  checks  each  BASIC  line  that  you  enter. 
It  gives  audible  and  visible  alarms  if  the  BASIC  line  lacks  the 
proper  checksum.  The  usual  cause  of  this,  of  course,  is  a  typing 
error  in  the  BASIC  line  itself. 

There  are  ways  to  disable  the  automatic  checking  and  other 
ways  to  reactivate  it  once  disabled.  Complete  operating  instruc- 
tions are  printed  in  the  magazine  each  month. 

All  in  all,  the  system  is  simple,  accurate  and  useful.  If  you 
haven't  tried  it  yet,  you  ought  to  give  it  a  whirl. 

But  even  the  best  programs  can  be  improved  upon,  and  these 
are  no  exception.  The  accompanying  listings  provide  some 
changes  that  will  make  the  Magazine  Entry  Programs  easier 
and  faster  to  use. 

The  short  listings  that  start  "1  REM  IMPROVED ..."  are 
lines  that  are  to  be  added  to  the  Magazine  Entry  Programs 
printed  in  the  magazine.  To  add  them,  you  must  first  put  the  ap- 


12    AUGUST  1988 


ips  &  Tricks/64  and  128 

propriate  (64  or  1281  Magazine  Entry  Program  into  memory,  ei- 
ther by  typing  it  or  loading  it  from  disk.  Then  choose  the  appro- 
priate (64  or  128>  listing  from  this  article  and  type  lines  1-140, 
which  will  be  added  to  the  original  program.  (Actually,  one  of 
the  lines  in  each  listing  replaces  a  line  in  the  original  program.) 

If  you're  typing  the  new  lines  for  the  64,  don't  overlook  the  se- 
micolons at  the  ends  of  lines  6  and  102. 

Notice  that  the  new  program  starts  with  a  line  identifying  it 
as  an  improved  version.  Save  it,  giving  it  a  name  that  will  differ- 
entiate it  from  the  original. 

The  improved  programs  automate  your  NEW  and  SYS  by 
printing  them  onto  the  screen,  where  you  can  execute  them  by 
pressing  the  RETURN  key.  This  reminds  you  to  execute  these 
two  important  commands,  and  saves  some  typing  when  you  do 
it.  The  128  version  even  puts  a  line  of  instructions  in  a  window 
at  the  top  of  the  screen,  where  it  stays  visible  as  you  enter  your 
other  programs. 

But  the  new  programs  have  an  even  better  feature — they  let 
you  save  the  machine  language  programs  directly,  rather  than 
in  the  original  BASIC  loader  form.  This  makes  for  faster  load- 
ing every  time  you  use  them.  (For  the  64,  loading  time  is  cut 
from  80  seconds  down  to  five!)  To  activate  this  feature,  just  an- 
swer "Y"  when  asked  if  you  want  to  save  an  ML  version. 

The  Autoloader  program  accompanying  this  article  automati- 
cally manages  the  machine  language  programs.  It  detects 
whether  it's  running  on  a  64  or  128  then  loads  and  executes  the 
appropriate  machine  language  code.  It  even  displays  the  com- 
mands for  disabling  and  reactivating  the  Magazine  Entry  Pro- 
grams. 

To  use  the  Autoloader,  just  be  sure  the  machine  language  ver- 
sion of  the  proper  Magazine  Entry  Program  is  on  the  disk  in 
your  drive.  Then  load  and  run  the  Autoloader,  and  everything 
will  take  care  of  itself. 

If  you  want  to  be  completely  equipped  to  work  with  the  Maga- 
zine Entry  Programs,  you  should  set  up  one  disk  that  contains 
all  the  programs  you'll  need.  Here  is  what  should  be  on  it: 

1.  The  original  64  Magazine  Entry  Program,  as  it  appears  in 
the  back  of  the  magazine. 

2.  The  original  128  Magazine  Entry  Program. 

3.  The  improved  64  Magazine  Entry  Program  (the  one  with 
lines  1-140  for  the  64  added). 

4.  The  improved  128  Magazine  Entry  Program  (with  added 
lines  1-140  for  the  128  added). 

5.  The  64  machine  language  version,  made  by  running  #3 
above  and  answering  "Y"  at  the  prompt.  Its  name  will  be 
MAGENTPROG64.ML, 

6.  The  128  machine  language  version,  made  by  limning  #4 
above  and  answering  "Y"  at  the  prompt.  Its  name  will  be 
MAGENTPROG128.ML 

7.  The  autoloader  program  that  accompanies  this  article. 
With  these  seven  programs,  you'll  be  able  to  do  anything 

you'd  like,  including  going  back  to  the  originals  as  printed  in 
the  magazine.  In  most  cases,  you'll  probably  just  use  the  auto- 
loader, which  in  turn  will  use  MAGENTPROG64.ML  or 
MAGENTPROG128.ML,  depending  on  the  machine  it  is  being 
run  on. 

This  article  includes  tips  from  Larry  A.  Sexton,  Harriman,  IN; 
Grzegorz  Szrnidt,  Warszawa,  Poland;  and  Jeffrey  A.  Seay,  Mau- 
melle,  AR. 

100  REM  *  AUTOLOADER  FOR  ML  VERSIONS 
110  REM  *  OF  THE  COMMODORE  MAGAZINE 


J  120  REM  *  MAGAZINE  ENTRY  PROGRAM 
130  PRINT" [CLEAR, DOWNJWORKING. . ." 

:KS="KILL";PS="MAGENTPROG6  4.ML" 

:R=49152:REM  64 
140  IF  PEEK(65534) =23  THEN  KS="SYS 

4  867":P$="MAGENTPROG128.ML":R=4  86  4 

:REM  128 
150  IF  A  =  0  THEN  A=l:LOAD  PS , 8 , 1 
160  PRINT" [CLEAR, DOWN] THE  COMMODORE 

MAGAZINE  MAGAZINE  ENTRY" 
170  PRINT"PROGRAM  IS  NOW  ACTIVE." 
180  PRINT" [DOWN) ENTER  '";KS; 

11  '  TO  DISABLE  IT." 
'  190  PRINT" [DOWN] ENTER  ' SYS" ; R" [ LEFT] 

1  TO  REACTIVATE  IT." 
200  PRINT" [DOWNJCOMPLETE  INFORMATION 

ON  HOW  TO  USE  THE" 
210  PRINT"MAGAZINE  ENTRY  PROGRAM  CAN 

BE  FOUND  IN" 
220  PRINT"THE  BACK  OF  ANY  ISSUE  OF 

THE  MAGAZINE. [DOWN] " 
230  SYS  R  :  NEW 


REM  IMPROVED 

PROGRAM 

REM  SEE  TIPS 


64  MAGAZINE  ENTRY 


&  TRICKS,  8/88 

VERSION  (Y  OR  N) ";Z$ 
"[SHFT  Y] 


100 
102 

104 
115 
120 


13 'J 


140 


INPUT"SAVE  A  ML 
:Z$=LEFTS(ZS, 1) 
IF  ZS="Y"  OR  ZS 
"  THEN  Z$="Y" 

IF  ZS="Y"  THEN  OPEN  1,8,8, 
"MAGENTPROG64 .ML, P, W" 
:PRINT#1,CHRS(0) +CHRS(19  2) 
B=H*16+L:POKE  P,B:T=T+B: 


P  =  P+1 


IF  ZS="Y"  THEN  PRINT! 1 ,CHRS (B) ; 

GOTO  30 

CLOSE  1 

PRINT" [CLEAR, DOWN13] 

DONE!  PRESS  <RETURN>  TWICE  TO 

ACTIVATE. 

PRINT" [DOWN] 'KILL'  DISABLES, 

'SYS49152'  REACTIVATES." 
PRINT" [ HOME, DOWN 3] NEW [ HOME, DOWN61 
SYS49152 [HOME] " : END 


128  MAGAZI 
&  TRICKS, 


1  REM  IMPROVED 

2  REM  SEE  TIPS 

3  : 

4  INPUT"SAVE  A  ML  VERSION 
:Z$=LEFT$(ZS,1) :IF  ZS  =  " 
"  THEN  Z$="Y" 

115  IF  ZS="Y"  THEN  BSAVE" 

8.ML",B0,P4864  TO  P55 
120  PRINT" [CLEAR]MAGAZINE 

:  SYS4864=ON [SPACE2JS 
125  W=39:IF  RWINDOW(2)=80 
130  WINDOW  0,1,W,24 
135  PRINT" [DOWN10]DONE!  P 

<RETURN>  TWICE  TO  ACT 
140  PRINT" [HOME, DOWN3] NEW 

SYS4864 [HOME! " : END 


NE  ENTRY  PROG 
8/88 

(Y  OR  N) ";Z$ 

[SHFT  Y] 

MAGENTPROG12 
46 

ENTRY 
YS4867=OFF" 

THEN  W=79 

RESS 

IVATE. 
[HOME,DOWN6] 

Continued  on  page  96 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE     13 


C:v.:*l' 
fonts  up 

to  192 

point. 


These  days, 
you  can  find 
all  kinds  of  pro- 
grams that  call  themselves 
desktop  publishers.  Oh,  one 
may  drop  a  drawing  here  or 
create  a  column  there.  But 
don't  let  anyone  kid  you. 

Nobody's  got  anything  like 
geoPublish. 

You  see,  geoPublish  is 
a  real  desktop  publisher. 
With  hundreds  more  features 
that  unleash  your  layouts 
across  an  endless  number 
of  pages,  and  leave  your 
non-GEOS  friends  frenzied 
with  frustration. 


"Full  featured  desktop 
publishing  on  the  Com- 
modore 64?  Including 
laser  printing?  If  I  hadn't 
seen  it  with  my  own  eyes 
on  my  own  Commodore 
64, 1  wouldn't  have 
believed  it,  either." 

— MicroTimes.  March,  19KH 

With  geoPublish,  you  pour 
your  geoWrite  text  into  col- 
umns and  around  graphics. 
Automatically.  You  can  use 
any  of  the  21  preset  page 


layouts  or  any  of  the  zillions 
you  come  up  with  yourself. 

After  that,  it's  off  to  fun 
city. 

The  geoPublish  toolbox 
is  filled  with  goodies  that 
help  you  create  all  kinds  of 
special  effects  in  almost 
every  area,  for  example,  you 
can  customize  over  80  GEOS 
compatible  fonts.  In  bold, 
italic,  underline,  or  outline. 
In  any  combination  you 
choose.  Up  to  192  points 
high. 

"Of  the  three  soft- 
ware packages  I  used 
(geoPublish,  Personal 
Newsletter,  Outrageous 
Pages),  geoPublish  most 
resembles  professional 
desktop  publishing 
programs:'    _Rl.y  Mmhl>WH 

And  that's  just  what  you 
can  do  with  type.  You  can 
also  create  columns.  Boxes. 
Banners.  Enlarge  or  reduce 
graphics.  Zoom  in  for  detail 
work.  Preview  the  entire 
page.  And  print  the  whole 
thing  out  on  a  LaserPrinter 
for  a  razor  sharp  look. 

Of  course,  those  aren't  the 
only  reasons  we're  excited 
about  geoPublish.  It's  also 
because  major  magazines  — 
like  the  tough  guys  at  INFO 


KTURE  STORY. 


— are  raving  about  it,  too. 
Saying  that  people  will  use 
geoPublish  "to  retire  their 
Print  Shops  and  Print  Mas- 
ters" and  that  "Newsroom 
pales  in  comparison'.' 


geoPublish  Features 
General 

•  WYSIWYG.  What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get, 

•  Import  graphics from  geoPaim. 

•  Import  graphics  from  Print  Shop,  Newsroom, 
Print  Master'"  using  GfiOS  Graphics  Grabber 
(sold  separately  with  Deskpaek  Plus). 

•  Full  page  and  zoom  display  modes. 

•  On-screen  rulers,  digital  cursor  control  allows 
exact  placement  in  full  page  edit  modes. 


Work  in  full  page  preview  mode 


Zoom  into  actual  size 


Create  master  pages 


«Sl  U  1K4  fc?  egkWl 


GEOPUBL 
rMKES  BIG  M 


j-erAi-.f  &>itn  Ail  bjtti 

fi.cn  H.**:  SH 

trier  Hal*     ^WC«1)>1» 


,c>    1% 


Flow  text  into  column 


Headlines  in  -1  to  192  points 


object  manipulation 


Hey,  with  press  like  that 
what  more  need  we  say? 

Well,  we  can  say  we  ve  got 
even  more  features.  In  fact, 
a  whole  What-You-See-Is- 
What-You-Get  wish  list  in  the 
chart  to  your  right,  filled 
with  features  that  mean  busi- 
ness. Things  like  text  in  any 
pattern  and  automatic  font 
smoothing  and  stuff  that 
nobody  else  ever  thinks  of. 

So  if  you're  serious  about 
desktop  publishing,  take  a 
look  at  geoPublish.  For  Com- 
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If  you  have  nuggets  of  your  own  to  contribute,  write  them  up 
and  send  them  in.  Successful  contributors  will  get  real  and  re- 
warding fame,  plus  a  grubstake  of  $5  upward. 

Each  submission  should  combine  all  the  tips  for  one  game,  and 
your  name  and  full  address  must  be  printed  on  every  sheet  of  pa- 
per. Mail  your  nuggets  to: 
The  Gold  Mine 
P.O.  Box  101011 
Pittsburgh,  PA  15237 

Alternate  Reality:  If  you  know  how  to  use  a  disk  sector  editor, 
you  can  easily  change  your  character  stats.  Each  disk  can  hold 
four  characters,  on  tracks  5,  9, 13  and  17, 
In  sector  14,  the  locations  are: 
167-169  —  Experience  in  hi  byte/lo  byte  format 
173       —  Character  level 
184-185  —  Hit  points  in  hi  byte/lo  byte  format 
188-189  —  Maximum  hit  points 
190-193  —  Amount  of  gold 
194-197  —  Amount  of  silver 
198-201  —  Amount  of  copper 
202-205  —  Amount  of  gems 
206-209  —  Amount  of  jewels 

These  are  the  locations  in  sector  15.  Choose  a  number  be- 
tween 0  and  255  and  put  it  three  times  in  a  row  in  the  places  in- 
dicated: 

46-48  —  Strength 
55-57  —  Intelligence 
64-66  — Wisdom 
73-75  — Skill 
82-84  — Stamina 
91-93  —  Charisma 
100-102  — Speed 
Robert  Sax 
Wilson,  NY 

The  Bard's  Tale  II:  When  fighting  sorcerers,  avoid  attacking, 
giving  the  defend  command  to  all  your  characters.  The  sorcerers 
will  usually  summon  up  a  ninja,  and  at  the  end  of  the  round  the 
party  will  disbelieve  them.  Repeat  this  several  times,  and  your 
experience  points  will  really  mount  up. 

Tired  of  waiting  for  morning?  Go  in  and  out  of  the  Adventur- 
er's Guild. 
Trenton  Gold 
El  Paso,  TX 


Compiled  by  Louis  F.  Sander 

The  Bard's  Tale  II:  Before  defeating  Lagoth  Zanta,  make  a  new 
character  and  bring  him  to  the  Sage's  Hut.  Defeat  Lagoth  Zanta 
and  the  King  will  award  all  new  characters  a  million  experience 
points,  which  will  bring  them  up  to  the  21st  level. 
Erik  Yerasseur 
Uxbridge,  MA 

The  Bard's  Tale  II:  Tb  enter  the  Catacombs  from  the  Mad  God 
Temple,  say  TARJAN  to  the  priest. 

Tb  get  the  first  piece  of  the  wand,  go  to  the  TOMBS  and  make 
sure  you  have  space  for  an  extra  person  to  join  your  party.  Then: 

1.  When  you  get  in  the  first  snare,  fight  the  toxic  giant. 

2.  Let  the  old  warrior  join  your  party,  putting  him  first  in  the 
lineup. 

3.  Give  the  warrior  what  you  got  from  the  giant. 

4.  Have  everyone  drink  from  the  fountain. 

5.  Have  the  old  warrior  use  what  you  got  from  the  giant  in 
front  of  the  cloudy  face. 

If  you  have  followed  these  instructions  carefully,  you'll  find  a 
door  where  you  found  the  old  warrior.  It  leads  to  the  first  piece  of 
the  wand.  To  get  the  second  piece,  after  entering  the  second 
snare  go  through  the  door  on  the  left. 
Tim  Simstad 
Address  Unknown 

The  Bard's  Tale  II:  To  get  past  the  double  doors  in  the  beginner 
dungeon,  make  your  bard  sing  the  Watchwood  Melody. 

When  going  to  fight  Lagoth  Zanta  (the  Sage),  fill  the  empty 
slots  in  your  characters  with  dynamite  or  holy  hand  grenades. 
Then  have  every  character,  except  for  your  Archmage(s)  and 
those  with  an  Aram's  knife,  toss  dynamite  or  holy  hand  gre- 
nades every  round.  Make  the  Archmage(s)  cast  either  the  dream 
spell  or  heal  all,  to  heal/raise  every  member  who  has  taken  any 
damage.  Toss  Aram's  knives  at  Lagoth  Zanta  until  he  is  dead. 
Stephen  E.  Mynhier 
Lake  City,  FL 

Bomb  Jack:  For  infinite  lives,  load  the  game,  reset  your  64, 
then  type: 

POKE  4056,44  <RETURN> 

SYS  2064  <RETURN> 
Patrick  Thibault 
St-Nicolas,  Quebec 
Canada 


16    AUGUST  1988 


Gold  Mine 

Bomb  Jack:  Here's  another  wav  to  do  it: 

POKE  5693.234  <RETURN> 

POKE  5694.234  <RETURN> 

POKE  5695.234  <RETURN> 

SYS  2066  <RETURN> 
Adrian  Zenker 
Buenos  Aires,  Argentina 

Bruce  Lee:  To  get  super  high  scores  in  this  game,  go  to  the 
right-most  part  of  the  screen  on  ground  level.  After  appearing 
on  the  left  side  of  the  screen,  go  to  the  ladder  in  the  middle. 
When  the  Ninja  appears,  he  will  come  down  and  stop  beside  the 
ladder.  Come  down  and  he  will  charge  you.  When  the  Ninja 
touches  the  ladder,  climb  up  it  again.  Align  yourself  with  the 
Ninja  and  come  down  on  his  head.  Repeat  as  often  as  necessary. 
Ta-Wei  Wan 
Bangkok,  Thailand 

California  Games:  To  rack  up  points  in  Surfing,  instead  of 
ramping  in  the  regular  way.  push  your  button  and  push  your 
joystick  left.  You  will  be  able  to  do  a  360  in  the  air. 
Justin  Stephenson 
Evansville,  IN 

Cauldron  II:  For  infinite  lives,  POKE  26282,165. 
Patrick  Thibau.lt 
St-Nicolas,  Quebec 
Canada 

Championship  Wrestling:  When  playing  a  one-player  game, 

wait  until  your  score  is  750  points  before  covering  the  computer 

opponent.  If  your  score  is  above  900,  wait  until  time  runs  out,  or 

you  will  lose  up  to  six  points. 

Evan  Davis 

Edgeworth,  New  South  Wales 

Australia 

Championship  Wrestling:  The  world  record  is  located  on  Track 
18,  Sector  10.  If  you're  skilled  with  a  disk  editor,  change  it  to 
anything  you'd  like. 
David  Stewart 
Hazel  Green,  AL 

Defender  of  the  Crown:  When  you  are  raiding,  strike  the  soldier 
while  moving  backwards.  It  will  be  hard  for  him  to  strike  you. 
Nathan  Jones 
Baltimore,  MD 

Defender  of  the  Crown:  When  you  first  start  the  game,  transfer 
all  your  garrison  to  your  army,  then  move  to  a  territory  that  has 
the  most  vassals.  This  will  put  extra  men  into  your  army.  Do 
this  for  two  or  three  moves  to  build  your  income  and  your  army, 
but  don't  spend  too  much  time  away  from  your  castle  with  no 
men  there. 

When  jousting  in  a  tournament,  move  the  lance  left  until  it  is 
just  left  of  the  right-hand  side  of  your  opponent's  shield,  then  go 
down  a  little.  While  doing  this,  count  the  number  of  times  your 
lance  bounces.  On  the  fifth  bounce,  at  the  lowest  point  possible, 
press  the  button  to  knock  your  opponent  off  his  horse.  This  takes 
a  little  practice,  but  it's  worth  it. 

When  jousting  against  a  better  opponent,  try  to  knock  him 
from  his  horse  the  first  time.  If  you  miss,  he  is  likely  to  knock 


you  off  that  time  or  the  next.  When  jousting  an  inferior  oppo- 
nent, you'll  probably  have  another  chance. 
Glenn  Taylor 
Algonac,  MI 

Dig  Dug:  If  you  observe  the  lower  right  cave,  you  should  see 
Pooka,  the  tomato  with  sunglasses.  Watch  where  he  starts  mov- 
ing, and  go  down  to  his  cave  and  pop  him  from  above.  Pump  him 
at  the  place  he  started  from,  and  when  he  is  one  pump  from  pop- 
ping, press  RESTORE  and  immediately  start  another  game. 
Sometimes  this  works  and  gives  you  500  points  and  one  less 
creature. 
Shane  Watts 
Birmingham,  AL 

Fort  Apocalypse:  For  98  lives,  load  the  game  but  don't  run  it. 
Then  type: 

POKE  36339,153  <RETURN> 

RUN  <RETURN> 
Patrick  Thibault 
St-Nicolas,  Quebec 
Canada 

G.I.  Joe:  If  you  are  G.I.  Joe  and  one  of  your  troopers  is  behind 
bars,  position  your  star  next  to  him  (or  her  I.  Quickly  move  the 
joystick  towards  him,  pressing  the  joystick  at  the  same  time. 
The  words  G.I.  JOE  will  fall  on  the  captured  character,  and  you 
can  use  him  once  again. 

In  heavy  equipment  combat,  if  you  have  only  one  person  to 
control  both  joysticks,  find  the  hiss  tanks  and  position  your  vehi- 
cle out  of  range  of  missiles.  Then  pick  up  the  other  joystick  and 
begin  firing. 
Mark  Bichle 
Oregon,  OH 

Gunship:  Use  a  copy  machine  to  duplicate  the  overlay  supplied 
with  the  game.  Outline  frequently-used  keys  with  a  bright  col- 
ored marker,  making  them  much  easier  to  find. 

If  you  crash  or  are  found  MIA,  proceed  until  asked  to  flip  the 
disk  and  press  the  fire  button.  Instead,  flip  and  reboot  the  disk. 
You'll  find  your  pilot  still  alive,  and  you'll  be  able  to  collect  a 
chest  full  of  ribbons  and  medals,  not  to  mention  points. 
Joseph  T.  OVonnell 
Sewell,NJ 

Gunship:  Use  accelerated  time  while  traveling  to  your  primary 
and  secondary  missions  as  well  as  when  returning. 

Write  down  the  countersign  and  keep  it  close  by,  since  you 
have  a  limited  time  to  type  it  in.  Also  write  down  the  map  grid 
numbers  to  both  primary  and  secondary  missions. 

When  you're  getting  shot  down  drastically  and  you  need  to 
look  at  your  position,  press  Z  and  put  the  game  in  pause  mode. 
Mark  Bickle 
Oregon,  OH 


Hacker  II:  To  see  the  ending  screen,  type  COVER,  then  enter 

your  name  when  prompted.  This  tip  also  works  for  the  Amiga 

version. 

Steve  Rohatynsky 

Winnipeg,  Manitoba 

Canada 

Continued  on  page  98 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE     17 


64  AND  128  SOFTWARE  REVIEWS" 


Reviewed  by  John  jermaine 


California 
Games 


Computer:  Commodore  64 
Publisher:    Epyx 

600  Galveston  Dr. 

Redwood  City,  CA  94068 
Medium:      Disk 
Price:         S39.95 


Long  ago,  in  the  legendary  kingdom  of 
California,  a  group  of  young  wizards 
gathered  together  to  have  a  little  fun. 
These  talented  individuals  wanted  to  com- 
pete against  each  other,  so  they  devised  a 
series  of  unusual  challenges  which  took 
advantage  of  the  realm's  fantastic  weath- 
er and  beautiful  beaches.  These  events  in- 
cluded: halfpipe  skateboarding,  perform- 
ing tricks  with  a  foot  bag,  surfing,  roller 
skating,  BMX™  bike  racing,  and  throw- 
ing a  flying  disk.  Over  the  years,  new  gen- 
erations of  California  wizards  have  kept 
the  spirit  of  these  sports  alive  in  places 
tike  Venice  Beach,  Santa  Cruz  and  Gold- 
en Gate  Park. 

Matt  Householder,  a  program  manager 
at  Epyx,  also  became  fascinated  with 
these  addictive  west  coast  pastimes.  He 
and  his  wife  Candi  thought  software  cus- 
tomers around  the  world  would  jump  at 
the  chance  to  participate  in  traditional 
California  contests.  The  rest  is  history. 

lb  start  things  off,  lets  examine  the  six 
mini -games  of  the  program,  Halfpipe 
Skateboarding  is  a  unique  challenge  for 
several  different  reasons.  First  of  all,  the 
player  has  to  learn  the  secrets  of  riding  a 
skateboard  in  a  U-shaped  trough.  This  is 
no  easy  matter,  because  your  speed  and 
timing  must  be  exact.  Once  you've  mas- 
tered the  basics,  extra  points  can  be 
earned  by  performing  kick  turns,  hand 
plants  and  aerial  turns.  I  recently  spoke  to 
a  guy  who  had  done  a  lot  of  halfpipe 
skateboarding  several  years  ago.  He  says 
the  Epyx  simulation  of  the  sport  is  au- 
thentic and  accurately  depicts  the  unique 
factors  of  his  favorite  hobby. 

California  Games'  Foot  Bag  event  re- 
sembles Hacky  Sack'"  competition.  Even 
though  Foot  Bag  is  one  of  the  easiest 
events  of  the  program,  it's  really  a  chal- 
lenge to  literally  juggle  the  bag  (in  the  air 
above  you)  without  using  your  hands. 
Some  points  are  scored  by  keeping  the  foot 
bag  moving,  where  it  doesn't  touch  the 


Once  you  know  what  has  to 
be  done,  concentrate  your 
effort  on  learning  the 
optional  stunts  of  each 
game. 

ground,  but  a  wise  player  will  perform  as 
many  stunts  as  possible  during  the  allot- 
ted time.  By  using  this  approach,  the  user 
will  obtain  a  much  higher  score. 

Roller  Skating  dares  you  to  travel  down 
a  typical  California  boardwalk  without 
taking  any  spills.  The  skater  has  to  avoid 
a  number  of  familiar  obstacles  (including 
discarded  banana  peels,  bouncing  beach 
balls,  dropped  ice  cream  cones,  etc.),  while 
leaping  over  cracks  and  missing  pieces  of 
the  walkway. 

BMX  Bicycle  Racing  (BMX  stands  for 
Bicycle  Motocross)  is  the  ultimate  test  of  a 
consumer's  joystick  skills.  Ride  your  bike 
over  a  rugged  course  containing  a  gener- 
ous supply  of  bumps,  dips,  jumps,  and  a 
few  obstacles  thrown  in  for  good  measure. 
Points  are  awarded  for  completing  the 
course  within  the  two-minute  time  limit. 
A  smart  cyclist,  however,  will  try  to  per- 
form several  stunts  along  the  way  for  ad- 
ditional points. 


Surfing  actually  transports  you  to  the 
beaches  of  southern  California.  Grab  a 
board,  hit  the  waves  and  shoot  the  tube 
like  the  pros  do.  You  have  one  and  a  half 
minutes  or  four  wipeouts  (which  ever 
comes  first)  to  show  the  judges  your  stuff. 

Last,  but  not  least,  we  have  the  Flying 
Disk  contest.  If  you  like  throwing  a  Fris- 
bee"'  around  the  back  yard,  Flying  Disk 
should  be  right  up  your  alley.  The  object  of 
this  event  is  quite  simple:  throw  the  disk 
properly,  estimate  how  far  it  will  travel, 
and  catch  the  disk  before  it  falls  to  the 
ground.  Some  individuals  might  think 
this  is  a  boring  concept  for  a  home  com- 
puter game,  but  I've  had  a  lot  of  fun  trying 
to  do  everything  correctly. 

The  graphics  of  California  Games  are 
superb.  One  of  the  first  things  I  noticed 
about  the  program  was  its  interesting  col- 
lection of  computer  athletes.  In  Foot  Bag, 
for  example,  the  an  attractive  man  exhib- 
its extremely  fluid  body  movements.  Com- 
puter people  in  other  games  (like  those  in 
Roller  Skating  and  Flying  Disk)  give  you 
partial  control  of  their  bodies.  The  skater 
allows  the  player  to  move  her  legs  or 
jump,  while  the  two  flying  disk  enthusi- 
asts are  either  throwing  the  disk  or  mov- 
ing in  a  direction  to  catch  it.  BMX  Bike 
Racing,  Surfing  and  Halfpipe  Skateboard- 
ing feature  unusual  software  athletes.  In 
this  case  the  consumer  is  actually  mani- 


18    AUGUST  1988 


Software  Reviews/  California  Games  - 


pulating  the  vehicles,  instead  of  the  peo- 
ple riding  them. 

Background  graphics  are  equally  im- 
portant. Foot  Bag  competition  takes  place 
in  Golden  Gate  Park,  making  it  possible 
for  the  user  to  see  Alcatraz,  San  Francisco 
Bay  and  the  Golden  Gate  Bridge  in  the 
distance.  In  Roller  Skating,  the  player  can 
observe  activities  taking  place  on  the 
beach  behind  his  skater.  Where  most  com- 
puter games  simply  place  you  in  a  generic 
environment,  California  Games  actually 
transports  the  player  to  places  he's  read 
about  and  gives  him  the  opportunity  to 
experience  what  it's  like  to  be  there. 

All  six  events  in  California 
Games  were  well  planned 
and  thoroughly  researched. 


If  you  expect  superior  sound  effects  in 
your  software,  California  Games  won't  dis- 
appoint you.  First  of  all,  inspirational  mu- 
sic is  played  at  the  beginning  of  every  con- 
test. Some  of  these  energetic  tunes  seem 
vaguely  familiar,  but  the  only  one  I  could 
identify  was  "Louie,  Louie"  (heard  during 


the  opening  title  sequence).  The  different 
sounds  of  the  sea  in  the  program  are  abso- 
lutely incredible.  As  you  participate  in 
Surfing,  for  example,  the  ocean  literally 
roars  around  you.  During  Foot  Bag  com- 
petition, the  player  is  a  short  distance 
away  from  the  water,  and  the  sound  of  the 
sea  is  much  softer.  These  last  two  items 
are  the  most  realistic  home  computer 
game  sound  effects  I've  heard  to  date. 
Other  interesting  noises  include:  the  low 
ramble  of  an  earthquake,  the  screech  of 
sea  gulls  flying  over  head,  and  the  high- 
pitched  language  of  dolphins. 

Game  play  is  another  issue  we  need  to 
discuss.  All  six  events  in  California 
Games  were  well  planned  and  thoroughly 
researched.  As  far  as  I  can  tell,  each  is  a 
true  simulation  of  the  sport  represented. 
These  challenges  were  also  designed  to  be 
extremely  user  friendly.  Epyx  game  de- 
signers have  taken  a  complicated  real-life 
situation  and  simplified  things,  so  the 
average  consumer  can  perform  the  same 
task  on  a  microcomputer. 

Read  as  much  about  each  contest  as  you 
can  before  actually  "booting  up"  the  title. 
Yes,  this  means  opening  the  instruction 
manual.  Once  you  know  what  has  to  be 
done,  concentrate  on  learning  the  optional 
stunts  of  the  game.  Performing  these 


tricks  in  competition  will  earn  you  a  lot  of 
additional  points.  A  time  factor  is  also 
present  in  most  events,  so  try  to  perform  a 
number  of  different  stunts,  progressing 
from  the  easiest  to  the  hardest  ones  on  the 
list.  This  strategy  guarantees  you  a  de- 
cent score,  with  the  possibility  of  earning 
an  excellent  one. 

In  conclusion,  California  Games  is  a  re- 
markable piece  of  software.  The  graphics 
of  the  program  are  excellent.  Computer 
athletes,  in  all  six  game  challenges,  look 
and  act  like  real  human  beings.  If  you  ride 
your  bike  over  the  BMX  race  course,  ex- 
pect to  encounter  the  types  of  things  real 
BMX  bikers  have  to  contend  with.  In  oth- 
er words,  authenticity  is  the  prime  direc- 
tive. Every  component  of  the  program  has 
been  carefully  patterned  after  its  counter- 
part in  the  real  world,  and  the  motion  of 
these  items  appears  to  be  natural.  Sound 
effects  are  equally  impressive.  They  suc- 
cessfully support  the  action  on  the  screen. 
The  joystick  commands  are  easy  to  use, 
while  the  instruction  manual  was  written 
in  common  language. 

I  really  enjoyed  the  program  because 
it's  like  radical  and  totally  tubular,  dudes. 
For  an  instant  translation  of  this  last  re- 
mark, read  the  final  page  of  the  California 
Games  instruction  manual.  B 


want  to  make  it  the  centerpiece 
Scenery  Disk  collection!  This  is  pari 
a  five-part  guided  tour  from  Lone 
Red  Square. 

This  month  we  say  goodbye  to  P 
France  Look  closely  and  you  car 
Arc  de  Triomphe  to  the  right  of  )l 
Tower 

On  to  Germany!  We  land  first  at  F 
one  of  the  most  modern  Germas 
Other  areas  we'll  be  visiting  inclu 
Munich,  Numberg  and  Stuttgart. 

Next  month  we'll  finish  our  tour  o' 
Germany,  and  prepare  to  go  on 
Moscow! 

"^LOGIC 

Corporation 

501  T(enyon  Road 
Champaign.  II 61820 

[217)3&64&Tfrtn  206991 
OflOER  LlhF  IBOOI  63T-WS3 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE     19 


64  AND  128  SOFTWARE  REVIEWS 


Reviewed  by  Gary  V.  Fields 


Sub  Battle 
Simulator 


Computer:  Commodore  64 
Publisher   Epyx 

600  Galveston  Dr. 

Redwood  City,  CA  94063 
Medium:      Disk 
Price:         $39.95 


Sub  Battle  Simulator  is  the  latest  entry 
in  the  World  War  II  submarine  simu- 
lation field.  This  game  lets  you  command 
either  an  American  or  German  subma- 
rine during  the  war  years  of  1939  through 
1945.  As  skipper,  you  can  take  your  sub 
out  for  training  maneuvers,  a  single  bat- 
tle or  multiple  missions  covering  the  du- 
ration of  the  war,  plus  you  can  operate  in 
either  the  Pacific  or  Atlantic  Ocean. 

As  if  those  options  weren't  enough,  the 
game  lets  you  select  which  type  of  subma- 
rine you  command  as  well.  As  a  German 
officer,  you  can  select  either  an  outdated 
German  HD  U-boat  (for  a  real  challenge), 
the  more  common  VIIC,  or  even  the 
streamlined  XXI  (to  put  the  odds  on  your 
side).  If  you  prefer  to  operate  an  American 
sub,  you  must  choose  between  Gato'Tench 
class  or  an  older  S-Boat.  These  choices  not 
only  prevent  missions  from  becoming  re- 
dundant, but  also  make  the  simulations 
much  more  realistic.  The  game  includes 
four  levels  of  difficulty,  but  these  artificial 
levels  are  expanded  by  choosing  the  type 
submarine  you  command. 

I  must  admit  I  approached  Sub  Battle 
with  some  skepticism.  One  of  the  first  war 
games  I  ever  bought  for  my  64  was  a  sub 
simulator,  and  I've  tried  to  test  each  new 
entry  into  the  field.  Too  often  I've  found 
these  games  were  either  too  arcade-like  or 
else  too  complicated.  The  only  one  I  really 
liked  that  properly  mixed  action  and 
strategy  was  Silent  Service  (MicroProse). 
The  question  for  me  came  down  to  one 
consideration:  how  well  does  Sub  Battle 
hold  up  against  my  favorite?  And  to  an- 
swer the  question  immediately,  I  found 
this  one  every  bit  as  good  in  most  categor- 
ies and  better  in  some. 

First,  let  me  tell  you  the  few  things  I 
didn't  like.  This  game  relies  heavily  upon 
keyboard  controls,  which  means  you  will 
have  to  spend  some  time  mastering  your 
sub's  layout  before  you  can  hope  to  sur- 
vive in  open  water.  Because  the  game 


To  survive 

you  must  be 

able  to  mix 

caution, 

courage,  skill 
and  luck. 


spans  the  conflict  areas  of  both  the  Atlan- 
tic and  Pacific  oceans  and  includes  views 
from  radar,  sonar,  maps,  periscope,  bin- 
oculars and  the  tower  (plus  zoomed  views 
of  some),  the  entire  game  cannot  be  loaded 
into  the  64's  memory  at  one  spin.  So  when 
you  change  views  or  significant  events  oc- 
cur, the  disk  is  accessed  to  display  the  new 
screen  or  information.  These  access  delays 
are  not  annoyingly  long,  but  they  can 
spoil  the  illusion  of  real-time  play. 

With  that  said,  let  me  add  I  was  delight- 
ed with  everything  else  about  Sub  Battle. 
The  game's  graphics  are  well  done,  the 
maps  are  accurate,  and  the  sound  effects 
are  effective.  Not  only  can  you  view  most 
of  the  actual  gauges,  devices  and  scenes 
you  would  from  a  real  sub,  but  you  can 
also  view  your  submarine  (when  sub- 
merged) from  a  vantage  point  outside  the 
sub  (fish-eye  view).  This  perspective  lets 
you  see  any  surface  vessels  approaching 
and  dropping  depth  charges.  I'm  sure 
some  perfectionists  will  object  to  this  un- 
real vantage  point,  but  I  appreciate  the 
option.  I  found  the  ability  to  see  the  action 
during  a  depth  charge  attack  increased 
my  interest.  If  you  demand  realism  and 
nothing  more,  simply  never  use  this 
option. 

I  really  like  the  ability  to  do  battle  in 
either  ocean  and  the  ability  to  stay  at  sea 
for  the  duration  rather  than  for  only  a  few 
sorties.  Here,  as  in  real  war,  you  must  re- 
turn to  home  port  to  refurbish  your  sup- 
plies. To  survive  you  must  be  able  to  mix 
caution,  courage,  skill  and  luck.  The  game 
even  includes  air  attacks  which  you  must 
either  avoid  or  defend  against  with  your 
anti-aircraft  gun.  And  true  to  life,  you 
must  recharge  your  batteries  for  sub- 
merged action.  There  is  also  an  option  to 
save  your  place  in  the  game,  so  a  mission 


can  go  on  as  long  (or  as  short)  as  you  wish 
(or  survive).  The  map  displays  as  well  as 
all  the  other  graphics  of  this  game  are  re- 
alistic though  not  the  best  Fve  seen  on  the 
64.  Apparently  the  programmer  sacrificed 
some  graphics  in  order  to  accommodate 
more  realism  and  speed. 

The  only  thing  a  real  enthusiast  might 
complain  about  is  that  the  game  is  a  little 
too  easy  at  the  entry  level.  At  that  level,  it 
is  very  difficult  to  miss  hitting  at  least  one 
ship  when  firing  at  a  convoy.  But  as  you 
increase  the  difficulty  level,  the  game  gets 
tougher  and  truer  to  real  warfare.  I  per- 
sonally appreciated  the  easy  entry  level. 
Too  often  games  are  so  difficult  that  any- 
one less  than  an  expert  in  the  field  in 
which  the  simulation  is  molded  becomes 
frustrated.  This  is  not  true  of  Sub  Battle. 
You  will  almost  certainly  have  fun  and 
tear  up  some  convoys  on  your  very  first 
tour  of  duty.  As  you  feel  more  confident 
you  can  increase  your  difficulty  level, 
challenge  and  game  reality. 

There  was  a  time  when  movies  were 
guaranteed  success  at  the  box  office  as 
soon  as  they  were  banned  in  Boston.  In- 
stead of  deterring  people  from  using  a 
product,  banning  it  usually  peaks  the 
public's  interest.  Some  software  is  now 
getting  the  same  treatment.  The  recent  ef- 
forts in  West  Germany  to  ban  the  sale  of 
some  war-related  software  to  minors  in 
that  country  has  peaked  interest  in  those 
games  just  like  Boston  peaked  public  in- 
terest in  the  movies  the  city  tried  to  ban. 
At  this  writing,  Sub  Battle  hasn't  received 
the  notoriety  of  such  attention.  But  my 
advice  is,  don't  overlook  this  game  just  be- 
cause the  Bonn  government  has  not  no- 
ticed it  yet.  Sub  Battle  is  an  excellent  na- 
val war  simulation  and  deserves  to  be 
ranked  with  the  64's  best.  g 


20    AUGUST  1988 


(b- 


128  NEWS 


PAGE  ,LLUSTRATOft 


Here's  an  80-column  high -resolution 
drawing  package  (hat's  powerful  and 
easy  to  use. 

Create  colorful  graphics  or  have  Page 
lilustrator  assist  you  in  drawing  simple 
geometric  figures.  Create  clip-art  from 
any  portion  of  the  screen,  then  mirror, 
reverse,  or  flip  it 

Import  graphics  trom  popular  drawing 
packages  for  your  own  creations.  Add 
the  finishing  touch  by  using  a  variety 
of  fonts. 


Bring  the p'owerofpereonanHcWi 
to  your  C-128  or  128D.  Integrate  text 
and  graphics  to  construct  everything 
from  high  quality  newsletters  to  profes- 
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Layoutand  design  isquickand  straight- 
forward, import  text  created  with  your 
word  processor.  Wrap  it  around 
graphics  from  Page  Illustrator.  Then 
change  the  look  by  using  a  different 
font  or  repositioning  graphics. 
Add  Extended  Video  RAM  and  1700-1750 
RAM  Expansion  for  higher  performance. 


TWO  CONSTRUCTIVE  PROGRAMS 
From  Patech  Software,  Inc. 

You  don't  need  a  new  computer  to  join  the  desktop  publishing  revolution!  With 
PAGE  BUILDER  and  PAGE  ILLUSTRATOR  from  PATECH  Software,  your 
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dot-matrix  printer! 

PAGE  BUILDER  and  PAGE  ILLUSTRATOR  are  stand-alone  programs;  each 
with  a  specific  function  to  perform.  Whether  used  singly  or  as  an  unbeatable  team, 
these  Two  Constructive  Ideas  are  designed  to  make  maximum  use  of  the  C-128's 
native  power.  They  were  created  by  publishing  professionals  who  put  that  power 
where  you  need  it  most  —  into  real  performance  and  utility,  not  bells  and  whistles. 

PAGE  BUILDER  Suggested  Retail  Price    S49.95  PAGE  ILLUSTRATOR  Suggested  Retail  Price    $ig.g5 

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Add  S3.S0  for 

Shipping  and 

Handling 


64  AND  128  SOFTWARE  REVIEWS 

Postcards 

Computer:  Commodore  64 
I'ublisher:   Activision 

3885  Boharmon  Dr. 

Menlo  Park.  CA  94025 
Medium:      Disk 
Price:         .$24.95 


The  postcard:  is  there  any  other  com- 
munications medium  as  simple  and 
effective?  With  a  couple  of  well-chosen 
words  scribbled  on  the  flip  side  of  a  select- 
ed photo  or  illustration,  one  can  invest  in 
a  fifteen-cent  stamp  and  expeditiously 
make  contact,  establish  whereabouts  and 
express  well  wishes  anywhere  from  the 
Atlantic  to  the  Pacific.  Talk  about  efficien- 
cy! The  only  notable  problem  with  these 
pocket-sized  wonders  is  that  their  com- 
mon use  is  usually  pretty  restricted;  they 
are  generally  reserved  for  messages 
penned  at  a  hotel,  resort,  tourist  attrac- 
tion or  other  travelers'  rest  stop.  Once  the 
trip  is  over  and  the  suitcases  are  un- 
packed, those  who  even  take  the  trouble  to 
keep  in  touch  with  the  written  word  are 
forced  to  the  card  shop  or  stationery 
store — options  which  are  apt  to  take  more 
time,  energy  and  cash. 

But  I  wouldn't  let  the  inkwells  dry  out 
just  yet,  for  an  evolution  is  in  the  works. 
With  the  release  of  Activision's  Postcards, 
the  familiar  postal  mighty  mite  has  taken 
a  giant  step  forward,  breaking  the  old  lo- 
cation restraints  and  now  making  it  possi- 
ble for  users  to  create  and  design  an  un- 
limited supply  of  personalized  postcards 
from  the  comfort  of  their  own  homes.  With 
this  program's  assistance,  a  blank  piece  of 
paper  can  be  transformed  into  a  unique, 
mailable  masterpiece  in  a  matter  of  min- 
utes. It's  all  so  incredibly  easy,  I  guarantee 
your  "outgoing"  pile  will  never  look  the 
same. 

The  nucleus  of  the  Postcards  package  is 
a  special  paint  program,  a  two-step  utility 
which  first  lets  you  sift  through  various 
visual  libraries  to  pick  up  all  of  the  ele- 
ments you  would  like  in  your  composition. 
It  then  provides  you  with  a  full-size  work 
area,  a  white  rectangular  canvas  of  sorts, 
on  which  the  ingredients  can  be  placed 
and  arranged.  A  vertical  "commands" 
menu  borders  the  left  edge  of  this  display, 
allowing  easy  access  to  all  designing  tools 
with  a  mere  tap  of  the  keyboard. 

When  gathering  artwork  for  your  post- 
card, you  can  either  use  the  clip  art  from 


Activision's  on-disk  pool,  or  compose  your 
own  drawings  from  scratch.  If  you  choose 
the  former  method,  you'll  find  enough 
imaginative  diversity  on  hand  to  satisfy 
almost  any  need.  First,  a  ten-scene  tour  is 
provided  to  help  you  outfit  your  postcard 
with  a  desired  background.  Offerings  in- 
clude Main  Street  U.S.A.,  skylines, 
moonscapes,  quiet  country  roads  and  ev- 
erything in  between.  Once  the  backdrop  is 
selected,  you'll  have  a  library  of  over  130 
pre-drawn  objects,  animals,  people,  signs 
and  structures  to  help  dress  things  up. 

Postcards  employs  the  familiar  and  fa- 
cile "cut  and  paste"  construction  tech- 
nique to  assist  with  the  designing.  As  if 
you  were  working  with  a  pair  of  scissors, 
you  can  leaf  through  the  visual  files,  se- 
lect and  "clip"  all  the  desired  items,  and 
then  place  and  position  them  anywhere  on 
the  postcard  in  progress.  Objects  can  be 
moved,  mated,  duplicated,  flipped,  or,  if 
they  don't  meet  expectations,  simply  dis- 
carded. With  Activision's  libraries,  the 
slant  is  humorous  and  the  scope  is  broad, 
ranging  from  the  realistic  (ice  cream  sun- 
dae) and  historic  (Napoleon),  to  the  fan- 
tastic (flying  saucer)  and  utterly  absurd 
(bikini-clad  wart  hog).  You're  bound  to 
find  just  what  you  need. 

Once  the  scene  is  set  and  the  cast  is  in 
place,  it's  time  to  polish  off' your  postcard 
with  a  personalized  message.  Some  of  the 
old  standbys,  like  "Good  Luck,"  "Greet- 
ings From  . . ."  and  "Congratulations"  are 
included  in  a  phrase  file.  But  there  are  no 
limitations.  You  can  say  anything  you'd 
like  either  by  typing  out  a  quip  or  two  in 
the  Text  mode  or  by  accessing  some  of  the 
more  elaborate  letter  styles  available  in 


the  Alphabet  library.  Then,  with  the  on- 
screen creation  complete,  you  move  to  the 
final  Output  phase,  where  the  postcard  is 
printed  onto  a  regular  sheet  of  paper. 
pasted  to  the  back  of  some  thicker  card 
stock  (supplied  in  the  package),  and  then 
trimmed  to  fit.  Voiia!  Your  completed  post- 
card is  ready  to  fly.  A  quick  note,  a  stamp, 
and  it's  on  its  way. 

We've  all  come  to  expect  a  complete  pro- 
fessional job  from  Activision,  and  Post- 
cards does  not  disappoint.  The  documen- 
tation is  clear  and  comprehensive,  filled 
with  easy-to-follow  lessons,  explanations 
and  examples.  A  sturdy  reference  card  is 
also  boxed,  categorically  listing  all  the 
1  contents  of  the  visual  files,  making  item 
location  a  snap.  This  thoroughness  and 
ease  of  use  also  Cannes  over  to  the  pro- 
gram itself.  Even  the  most  absent-minded 
user  will  be  steered  clear  of  potential  trou- 
ble with  on-screen  prompts  and  instruc- 
tions. It's  smooth,  trouble-free  sailing  all 
the  way. 

Although  this  package's  title  would  lead 
one  to  believe  that  its  finished  product  is 
rather  specialized,  I've  found  additional 
uses  for  these  petite  creations,  like  person- 
alized memos  and  eye-catching  bulletin 
board  reminders.  Activision  offers  even 
more  suggestions,  like  gift  tags,  invita- 
tions and  bookmarks.  It's  such  an  easy-to- 
use,  entertaining  diversion,  that  you'll 
probably  find  yourself  thinking  up  rea- 
sons to  pick  through  the  clip  art  to  create 
a  scene  or  two.  I've  got  a  whole  disk  full  of 
completed  postcards  just  waiting  for  an  oc- 
casion. 

With  Activision's  Postcards,  the  mes- 
sage is  clear.  Go  out  and  get  it.  Q 


22    AUGUST  1988 


TM 


Commodore 


StffflBS 

latter  than  BASIC 

•S&S5*  Graphs 
included.  A  cuk 

BEC^RBASlCMor 

srisr 


ston?)  SSSS"^ 

detailed  drawiny 

electronics  ete.  *- 

i  do  det^Jorkcaie 

Outputs  m  exact 

,.    -f  BASIC  programs 

run  ^  h  Ties- Another  ^ f0  „se  everday 

rPOSTM  Tricks  and  ^r^  tricks  and  >'Psg««write  in 


HatdvwrWngsoi 


Great  Reviews' 


VM'CK 


BHCKERTEXT-More 

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processor,  wn 

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as  you  type-    *1&u" 

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macro  ■JJ«Efj3«  functions 
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Card  No.. 
Name 


-&P-. 


City 

Phone  No. 


_S1ate_ 


_Zp_ 


64  AND  128  SOFTWARE  REVIEWS 


Reviewed  by  Jim  Esch 


geoDex 


Computer:  Commodore  (>4 
Publisher:    Berkeley  Soft  work? 

2150  Shattuck  Ave. 

Berkeley,  CA  94704 
Medium:      Disk 
Price:         Beskpaek  Plus— $29.95* 

GeoDex  turns  your  Commodore  64  or 
128  into  a  convenient  rolodex-style 
filing  system  for  names  and  addresses.  It 
has  the  look  of  an  actual  rolodex— it  pops 
up  in  front  of  your  desktop  menu  for  easy 
access.  Each  area  of  related  information 
looks  like  an  index  card  with  a  column  of 
icons  on  the  right  border.  Cards  are  orga- 
nized alphabetically  according  to  the  first 
letter  of  the  last  name,  which  is  indicated 
on  a  letter  tab  at  the  top  of  the  card.  A 
card  holds  ten  fields  of  information:  last 
name,  first  name,  middle  initial,  address, 
city,  state,  zip,  miscellaneous,  phone  num- 
ber, and  group  (more  on  this  later i. 

Each  field  is  accessed  by  pointing  and 
clicking  your  mouse  or  joystick  or  press- 
ing RETURN,  which  moves  you  to  the 
next  field.  There  are  limitations  to  the 
number  of  characters  that  you  can  enter 
in  a  given  field  (e.g..  .'30  characters  for  an 
address),  so  you  may  have  to  tinker  with 
abbreviations. 

If  you  want  to  make  a  new  entry,  click 
on  the  New  tab  and  type  your  informa- 
tion. When  you  are  done  with  a  card,  click 
on  New  again,  and  a  blank  and  will  ap- 
pear. The  card  you've  just  typed  has  been 
automatically  filed  in  alphabetical  order. 

Moving  between  files  is  essentially  the 
same  as  a  rolodex;  you  can  jump  to  a  letter 
tab,  then  flip  through  cards  using  the 
page  turn  icons  in  the  lower-left  corner  of 
each  card.  You  can  also  use  the  up  and 
down  cursor  keys  for  the  same  result. 

lb  search  through  files  for  a  particular 
name,  click  on  the  "Seareh"  icon  and  type 
in  the  last  name  you  want  to  find.  When 
you  enter  a  question  mark  in  the  name, 
geoDex  will  look  for  the  name,  allowing 
any  character  for  the  place  you  entered 
the  question  mark.  For  example,  if  you 
type  J?nes  instead  of  Jones,  geoDex  will 
look  for  Janes,  Jenes,  Jines,  Jones,  and 
Junes.  You  can  aJso  type  an  asterisk  (*)  at 
the  end  of  a  list  of  characters;  geoDis  will 
search  for  only  the  letters  before  the  aster- 
isk and  disregard  the  rest.  You  can  type 
Jo*  as  your  name,  and  geoDex  will  look  for 
any  name  beginning  with  "Jo."  You  can- 


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To  autodial  just  page  to  a 
card,  pick  up  your  phone 
(connected  to  a  modem)  and 
click  on  the  telephone  icon. 


not,  however,  begin  a  name  with  a  ques- 
tion mark  or  asterisk. 

Group  Fields 

lb  organize  your  cards  other  than  al- 
phabetically use  group  fields  (  three  per 
cardi.  These  fields  let  you  enter  a  three- 
initial  code  for  different  groups.  For  exam- 
ple, your  card  file  may  contain  many  dif- 
ferent types  of  names  and  addresses: 
friends,  club  members,  clients,  etc.  By  des- 
ignating each  card  into  these  categories, 
you'll  be  able  to  access  each  group. 

If  you  want  to  view  a  selected  group 
within  your  total  card  file,  click  on  the 
Group  icon  and  type  in  the  group  initials. 
Only  records  that  match  the  group  desig- 
nation will  be  displayed.  This  saves  you 
■  needless  flipping  through  irrelevant 
cards. 

GeoDex  can  also  print  your  records  in 
different  ways.  You  can  print  a  phone  list 
of  all  the  names  in  your  list  or  selected 
group,  or  you  can  print  address  labels  (one 
inch  and  inch  and  a  half  sizes  i.  You  can 
even  print,  a  list  of  all  the  field  data  on 
each  card.  Select  the  Group  icon  to  print  a 
select  portion  of  your  files. 

Autodial  ing  is  another  nice  feature  on 
this  application.  With  it  you  can  page  to  a 
card,  pick  up  your  phone  (connected  to  a 
modem!  and  click  on  the  telephone  icon. 
The  modem  will  dial  the  number  listed  on 
the  card. 

GeoDex  also  supports  many  commands 
via  the  keyboard:  autodial,  delete  current 
record,  search  for  a  record,  create  a  merge 
file,  select  a  group,  print  records,  quitgeo- 
Dax,  change  style  ( plain/boldface  I.  display 
first  record  of  a  given  letter  file.  You  can 
read  data  from  geoDex,  geoFik,  or  geo- 


Write,  The  manual  details  the  pi-ocess  for 
using  geoDex  to  merge  data. 

Tips 

Remember  that  geoDex  is  limited  to  24 
cards  per  letter  of  the  alphabet,  so  you 
might  need  to  keep  more  than  one  file 
drawer  if  you  think  you'll  exceed  this  lim- 
it. Use  this  limitation  to  your  advantage 
by  making  separate  drawers  for  separate 
purposes. 

GeoDex  is  useful  as  a  reference  tool,  and 
it's  a  quick  way  to  print  out  labels  and 
lists  in  dot  matrix  format  But  it  doesn't 
have  the  open  ended  capability  or  adapt- 
ability of  a  database  like  geoFile.  For  in- 
stance, you  are  limited  to  the  fields  given 
on  the  card,  which  have  character  limita- 
tions. Thus,  you  don't  have  as  much  flexi- 
bility in  tailoring  your  addresses  to  in- 
clude lengthy  or  multiple  information. 

The  more  complicated  your  entries,  the 
more  you'll  need  a  database  like  geoFile. 
The  fact  that  geoDex  is  a  dedicated  ad- 
dress card  file  makes  it  advantageous  over 
a  more  powerful  database  in  some  re- 
spects. You  don't  have  to  worry  about  cre- 
ating anything— you're  automatically 
provided  with  name,  address  and  tele- 
phone Dumber  fields,  The  program  also 
lacks  the  flexibility  of  print  styles  that 
you  have  in  other  GEOS  applications. 
GeoDex  prints  either  plain  or  boldface 
styles,  but  you  can't  use  fonts  like  Roma 
or  BSW.  You  can  use  fonts  by  merging  a 
geoDex  data  file  into  a  geoWrite  document. 
So  you  can  include  your  names  and  ad- 
dresses in  a  form  letter,  taking  advantage 
of  the  fonts  and  styles  in  geoWrite. 

GeoDex  can  be  very  useful  if  you  store  it 
onto  other  workdisks  with  applications 
like  geoWrite  and  geoFile.  This  way,  an  en- 
tire card  file  of  names  and  addresses  will 
be  at  your  disposal  while  writing  or  orga- 
nizing larger  fields  of  data.  With  geo- 
Merge  you'll  be  able  to  merge  this  infor- 
mation efficiently.  Think  of  the  time 
saved — no  more  alphabetizing  or  flipping 
through  cards  manually.  GeoDex  adds  fur- 
ther efficiency  to  your  Commodore  operat- 
ing environment  by  simplifying  the  tedi- 
um involved  with  the  traditional  rolodex. 
You'll  even  clear  some  desktop  space. 

:::  Editors  \ote:  Berkeley  now  bundles 
geoDex  with  geoMerge,  Graphics  Grab- 
ber, Icon  Editor,  The  Calendar  and  Black- 
jack. The  package  is  titled  Deskpack  Plus 
and  retails  for  $29.95.  Q 


24     AUGUST  1988 


Preview  The  Future! 


ttt«  ■  r^r 


SfiTlIM 


*»**•■•  Bufism 


i  aircrait . . .  me  nonesi  topic  or  discussion  in  aviation  circles  10 

Space  age  technology  and  engineering  make  these  aircraft  virtually 
undetectable  by  enemy  radar.  Stealth  fighters  are  believed  to  now  be 
operating  from  top  secret  military  bases,  flown  only  on  the  most  sensitive 
missions  and  only  by  the  most  experienced  pilots. 

Precise  information  about  this  next  generati 
of  Air  Force  jets  is  highly  classified.  But  ext 
sive  research  has  enabled  the  aviation  experts 
at  MicroProse  to  incorporate  the  potential 
design  and  performance  characteristics  in  a 
powerful  new  simulation. 

Slip  into  the  cockpit  of  PROJECT:  STEALTH  FIGHTER  and 
familiarize  yourself  with  the  advanced  "heads-up  display  "(HUD)  and 
sophisticated  3-D  out-the-cockpit  view.  At  your  disposal  is  a  dazzling 
array  of  state-of-the-art  electronics,  weapons  and  countermeasures. 

But  remember,  flying  a  stealth  aircraft  takes  more  than  just  fighter  pilot  reflexes. 

The  real  challenge  is  mastering  the  jet's  electromagnetic  profile  to  avoid  enemy 

radar,  white  executing  a  deep-strike  mission  into  North  Africa  or  conducting  delicate  photo  reconnaissance  over  Eastern  Block 

seaports.  Also  featured  are  carrier  and  land-based  takeoffs  and  landings,  as  well  as  land,  sea,  and  air  targets  and  threats. 

PROJECT:  STEALTH  FIGHTER  combines  the  combat  action  thrills  of  the  best-selling  F-15  STRIKE  EAGLE  with  the 
sophisticated  flight  environment  pioneered  in  GUNSHIP.  Add  the  danger  and  suspense  of  clandestine  missions  in  an 
innovative  'invisible  aircraft"  and  you  have  PROJECT:  STEALTH  FIGHTER,  the  latest  flying  challenge  from  MicroProse! 

PROJECT:  STEALTH  FIGHTER  is  available  from  a  "Valued  MicroProse 
Retailer"  WR|  near  you.  Call  us  for  locations! 
For  Commodore  64/128,  IBM-PC/compatibles  and  Apple  ll/e/c.  Call  or 
write  lor  specific  machine  availability,  and  for  MC/VISA  orders  il  product 
not  found  locally. 


183  Lttefiir.i  ~s  ■<  -K"  (*"«■■  '/J  ?i 


64  AND  128  SOFTWARE  REVIEWS 

The  Eternal 
Dagger 

Computer:  Commodore  64 
Publisher:    Strategic  Simulations,  Inc. 

1046  N.Rengstorff  Ave. 

Mountain  View,  CA 

94043-9986 
Medium:     Disk 
Price:         $39.95 

A    recent  release  from  SSI  is  The  Eter- 
±\jial  Dagger,  sequel  to  the  popular 
Wizard's  Crown.  The  Eternal  Dagger  cap- 
tures all  of  the  essential  elements  of  role- 
playing  games  that  make  them  so  enjoy- 
able and  places  them  in  a  new  "world" 
that  is  explored  via  an  updated  Wizard's 
Crown  game  system. 

This  game  system  that  made  Wizard's 
Crown  such  a  winner  promises  success  for 
The  Eternal  Dagger.  What  sets  the  system 
apart  from  other  role-playing  games  is  the 
use  of  two  forms  of  combat  (tactical  and 
quick)  and  the  highly  structured  and  or- 
ganized use  of  classifications  for  items, 
abilities,  monsters,  spells,  weapons  and 
characters.  Also  unique  to  this  system  are 
its  incredible  ease  of  use  and  command 
entry  that  relies  entirely  on  single  key 
presses. 

Every  encounter  with  enemies  in  The 
Eternal  Dagger  requires  a  choice  of  com- 
bat modes.  If  quick  combat  mode  is  select- 
ed, the  computer  resolves  all  combat  in 
five  to  ten  seconds.  This  mode  should  be 
used  only  when  weaker  creatures  are  en- 
countered. It  doesn't  allow  control  of  any 
special  combat  items  or  weapons  with 
which  defeat  of  the  enemy  may  be 
simpler.  The  computer  simply  chooses  .the 
best  strategy  for  your  party  and  conducts 
the  battle  based  on  this  strategy.  Whether 
you  win  or  not  is  out  of  your  hands. 

I  don't  like  trusting  a  computer  with  my 
free  time,  so  I  prefer  tactical  combat.  Tac- 
tical combat  brings  war  gaming  into  role- 
playing  games,  in  that  you  make  every 
battle  command  and  see  a  layout  of  all 
characters  and  monsters  involved  in  the 
battle  on  the  screen— just  like  a  war 
game.  Complete  control  of  all  items  and 
characters,  as  well  as  necessary  examina- 
tion of  all  opponents,  make  this  the  mode 
of  choice  for  all  but  the  easiest  battles. 

Many  battles  will  be  fought  in  The  Eter- 
nal Dagger,  for  the  plot  revolves  around 
reducing  the  number  of  creatures  over- 


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running  one  world  and  closing  the  gate 
that  leads  to  another  world  teeming  with 
more  horrible  monsters.  The  Eternal  Dag- 
ger takes  place  some  time  after  the  goal  of 
Wizard's  Crown  has  been  completed.  Kai- 
tar,  a  friendly  wizard,  has  discovered  that 
many  demons  and  undead  creatures  are 
attacking  innocent  people  in  Arghan,  the 
place  saved  in  Wizard's  Crown.  They  are 
coming  from  a  parallel  world,  Middle 
World.  Ssur,  a  wizard  in  Middle  World,  in- 
forms you  that  you  must  now  save  Middle 
World  from  these  monsters.  Your  party  is 
transported  to  Middle  World  through  a  di- 
mension gate,  in  which  you  lose  all  weap- 
ons and  inanimate  items,  for  only  living 
beings  (and  undead  creatures)  may  pass 
through  the  gate. 

Saving  Middle  World  from  the  demons, 
undead  and  other  monsters  offers  an  even 
greater  challenge  than  that  of  Wizard's 
Crown.  You  realize  that  the  source  of  all 
these  vile  creatures  is  the  Demon  World, 
the  gate  to  which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  a 
deep  ocean.  The  Demon  World  must  be 
entered  and  closed  forever.  The  only  thing 
that  allows  entrance  is  a  living  weapon, 
called  the  Eternal  Dagger.  You  must  cre- 
ate this  weapon  and  use  it  to  close  the  De- 
mon World's  gate. 

Sounds  simple  enough,  but  The  Eternal 
Dagger  is  a  very  challenging  game  that 
will  take  a  long  time  to  complete,  yet  it's 
worth  every  minute  of  play.  The  many 
subplots  make  you  forget  the  ultimate 
task  set  before  you.  There  are  three  main 
islands  you  must  explore  to  finish  Tlxe 
Eternal  Dagger.  Each  offers  its  own  chal- 
lenge. The  first  island,  on  which  you  start 
the  game,  is  Ssur's  home.  You  have  to  de- 
feat a  dragon  (getting  a  special  sword 
from  the  north  part  of  the  island  first)  and 
the  Necromancer,  who  has  changed  all  the 
good  people  of  Middle  World  into  undead 
creatures.  Travel  to  the  second  island,  El- 
ven  Isle,  and  the  third  island,  Dwarven  Is- 
land, requires  you  to  save  a  princess,  the 
only  person  capable  of  creating  the  Eter- 
nal Dagger.  The  last  phase  of  the  game  in- 
volves creating  the  special  weapon  and 
entering  the  Demon  World  through  the 
ocean.  Unfortunately,  you  lose  all  weap- 


Reviewed  by  Russ  Ceccola 


ons  and  items  once  again,  because  travel 
through  the  dimension  gate  is  only  for  liv- 
ing things.  All  of  these  goals  will  keep  the 
most  avid  adventurer  occupied  for  a  long 
time. 

Before  you  perform  any  of  the  above 
feats,  you  must  create  the  characters  that 
will  journey  through  Middle  World.  You 
have  three  options.  First,  you  can  use 
characters  from  Wizard's  Crown,  Do  this 
only  if  your  party  has  finished  Wizard's 
Crown.  Second,  you  can  use  the  eight 
characters  included  with  the  game  to  form 
a  party.  If  you  want  to  play  The  Eternal 
Dagger  with  these  characters,  closely  ex- 
amine each  one  before  starting  the  game. 
Finally,  you  may  create  each  character  in 
your  party.  I  recommend  going  through 
this  process,  since  only  then  will  the  game 
have  a  personal  touch.  Generation  of  each 
character  gives  you  an  extra  bit  of  control 
over  the  game  and  better  knowledge  of 
the  party. 

Creating  an  adventurer  and  assigning 
that  character  to  a  party  is  a  simple,  yet 
important,  process  explained  very  clearly 
in  the  manual.  You'll  find  yourself  using 
the  manual  as  a  reference  while  playing 
because  of  its  explicit  instructions  and  de- 
scriptions as  well  as  the  many  tables  used 
in  the  game.  Creating  a  character  in- 
volves assigning  points  to  four  attributes 
(intelligence,  strength,  dexterity  and  life), 
choosing  a  profession,  selecting  weapons 
and  armor  and  assigning  points  to  the 
various  skills  and  abilities  available  to 
your  profession.  Multiple  professions  are 
possible  and  recommended,  for  they  add 
skills  to  your  character.  Character  cre- 
ation is  very  important;  the  game  relies 
heavily  on  attributes  and  skills. 

The  Eternal  Dagger  is  entirely  menu- 
driven,  and  all  commands  are  entered  by 
pressing  a  key  that  means  something  in  a 
certain  menu  or  on  a  certain  screen.  This 
method  of  game  play  forces  you  to  concen- 
trate on  what  to  do  in  the  world  on  your 
screen.  Menus  that  you  will  use  the  most 
are  the  dungeon  menu,  the  tactical  com- 
bat menu,  the  character  inspection  menus 
and  the  camp  menu.  If  you're  not  sure 
what  a  command  does,  press  the  question 
mark  to  get  a  description  of  the  com- 
mand's purpose  for  that  menu.  This  fea- 
ture also  enables  easier  play. 

The  Eternal  Dagger  can  be  played  in 
many  ways,  however,  I  have  found  one 
method  that  seems  to  work  veiy  well.  Up- 

Cwilinued  on  page  67 


26    AUGUST  1988 


.UUGA 

Hii\iTs<iuklf 
[u  suJtwjn: 
.uxl  aixvwurics 


£rCommodo| 


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64  AND  128  SOFTWARE  REVIEWS' 

Superstar 
Soccer 


Computer: 

Commodore  64 

Publisher: 

Mindscape,  Inc. 

3444  Dundee  Rd. 

Northbnxik,  IL  60062 

Medium: 

Disk 

Price: 

$34.95 

First  things  first — soccer  was  never  my 
favorite  sport.  Little  guys  with  thun- 
der thighs  chasing  a  checkered  ball  up 
and  down  a  field.  Give  me  a  break.  Mind- 
scape's  Superstar  Soccer  has  changed  all 
that.  From  the  subtle  strategies  of  a  head 
coach  to  the  physical  finesse  of  an  over- 
head kick,  this  game  has  literally  opened 
my  eyes  to  a  whole  new  ballgame. 

Superstar  Soccer  was  designed  by 
Gamestar  veteran  Ed  Ringler,  author  of 
Mindscape's  Supemtar  Hockey  and  Indoor 
Sports.  Ringler's  attention  to  detail  has 
created  one  of  the  most  comprehensive 
sports  games  for  the  Commodore  64. 

Players  assume  the  role  of  the  owner, 
general  manager,  head  coach  and  star 
players.  Nurture  your  expansion  team 
through  each  season  and  watch  them 
grow  with  experience.  As  coach,  learn  to 
spot  both  raw  talent  and  bad  apples 
among  your  players.  Enter  the  bargaining 
tables  and  make  valuable  player  trades. 

Making  the  Most  of  Your  New 
Franchise 

1.  Beware  of  the  sheep  in  wolfs  cloth- 
ing, Wheeling  and  dealing  in  the  Player 
Trade  can  nab  you  a  crackerjack  player.  It 
can  also  saddle  you  with  a  turkey.  Check 
the  player  stats  carefully— especially  the 
injury  record — before  handing  over  valu- 
able trading  points.  Remember  that  this 
is  how  other  teams  clean  house.  Don't  get 
stuck  with  someone  else's  dirty  laundry. 

2.  Hold  a  family  reunion.  Try  to  bal- 
ance your  team  with  both  young  punks 
and  seasoned  veterans.  Recognize  the  dif- 
ference between  eagerness  and  ability, 
then  capitalize  on  both  with  strategic  sub- 
stitutions. Keep  a  healthy  roster  of  back- 
ups for  each  position — in  particular,  goalie 
and  center  forward. 

3.  Go  great  gonzos!  Scare  your  opposi- 
tion to  death  with  unbridled  enthusiasm. 
Intimidate  their  goalie.  Strike  hard,  fast 
and  never  let  up.  Go  for  a  record  number 


Then  hit  the  field  and  put  your  muscle 
where  your  mouth  is. 

New  players  begin  the  SportTime  Soc- 
cer League  with  a  rookie  expansion  team. 
The  league  contains  64  teams  in  four  16- 
team  divisions.  Brand-new  teams  start 
dead  last  in  division  four — a  long  climb  to 
the  top.  Players  can  choose  a  seven  or  15- 
game  season.  Finally,  choose  to  play  ei- 
ther in  the  U.S.  or  British  league.  Togeth- 
er, both  leagues  account  for  128  individual 
teams  containing  a  minimum  of  320 
unique  players.  The  game's  player  data- 
base alone  boggles  the  mind. 

The  main  menu  offers  a  wide  assort- 
ment of  team  information  and  options. 
View  the  League  Status  for  general  infor- 
mation or  Team  History  for  specific  statis- 
tics for  any  team  in  the  League.  Stats  in- 
clude win-draw-loss  records,  goals  for  and 
against,  division  number  and  standing, 
and  overall  ranking  in  the  League. 

Only  the  top  two  teams  at  the  end  of 
each  season  advance  to  a  higher  division. 
Consequently,  the  bottom  two  teams  are 
pushed  back  to  a  lower  division.  There  is 
often  a  two-  or  three-way  tie  for  the  top 
spots,  especially  in  higher  divisions.  In 

of  goals  each  game.  Success  or  failure — 
especially  in  the  higher  divisions — de- 
pends not  only  on  winning  games,  but  also 
on  scoring  big  points. 

4.  The  foot  is  quicker  than  the  eye. 
The  biggest  trick  in  scoring  goals  is  to  si- 
multaneously watch  the  kick  indicator, 
your  position  and  the  goalie's  movements. 
Short  of  installing  a  third  eye,  concentrate 
on  the  goalie  and  use  your  peripheral  vi- 
sion to  time  your  shot, 

5.  Don't  look  now . . .  Gotcha!  Practice 
the  art  of  confusing  a  goalie.  Approach  the 
goal  off-center,  feint  to  the  near  sideline 
just  enough  to  draw  his  commitment.  Re- 
verse direction  and  nail  the  ball  to  the  far 
corner  of  the  net.  Learn  to  run  one  way 
and  shoot  in  the  opposite  direction.  Goal- 
ies often  mistake  goal-line  passes  for 
shots,  causing  them  to  dive  for  thin  air. 

6.  One  is  a  lonely  number.  Don't  forget 
that  your  teammates  like  to  play  too. 
Chances  are  they  are  just  as  good,  or  bet- 
ter, than  you.  Forget  your  ego  and  learn 


Reviewed  by  Scot!  A.  May 


this  case,  teams  with  the  most  impressive 
scoring  records  earn  higher  rankings. 

The  menu  also  follows  each  team's 
standing  in  the  SportTime  Cup  playoffs. 
The  playoffs  consist  of  single-elimination 
contests  played  between  regular  season 
games.  One  toss  and  you're  out  of  the 
playoffs.  A  playoff  tree  keeps  track  of  the 
games  in  progress.  Novice  players 
shouldn't  have  to  worry  about  playoffs  for 
several  seasons — playoff  games  are  in- 
credibly tough.  Pitting  a  Division  1  com- 
puter team  against  your  band  of  90-pound 
weaklings  isn't  much  of  a  contest. 

At  the  heart  of  your  team  are  the  play- 
ers. Each  responds  as  an  individual  with 
almost  lifelike  characteristics,  strengths 
and  weaknesses.  Teams  consist  of  six  posi- 
tions: Center  Forward,  Goalie  and  four 
Wingbacks  (offense  and  defense).  Players 
range  in  age  from  17  to  36.  Although 
younger  players  show  more  energy  (quick- 
ness) on  the  field,  they  are  not  always  as 
talented  as  veterans.  On  the  other  hand, 
old  pros  tend  to  tire  and  injure  easily,  a 
common  problem  in  this  violent  sport. 

Player  skill  points  range  from  0-99  and 
affect  their  speed,  agility  and  intelligence 
(in  the  case  of  computer-controlled  play- 
ers). As  general  manager,  you  can  im- 
prove your  team  and  its  players  in  a  num- 
ber of  ways.  Visit  the  recruitment  menu 
and  sign  on  a  17-year-old  rookie.  Enter 
the  bargaining  tables  and  trade  players 

creative  passing  attacks. 

7.  Take  THAT!  Bicycle  kicks  and  head 
butts  are  great  fun  and  a  valuable  scoring 
technique.  The  trick  is  positioning  and 
timing.  Head  butts  are  great  for  deflecting 
passes,  often  right  into  the  goal.  Bicycle 
kicks  are  also  useful  for  passing  and  sim- 
ply moving  the  ball  away  from  your  goal. 
When  the  opposing  goalie  throws  the  ball 
into  play,  line  up  behind  the  other  team's 
center.  Counteract  his  bicycle  kick  with 
one  of  your  own  for  an  easy  score. 

8.  Sorry  'bout  that,  Coach.  This  is  a 
"write  intensive"  program,  constantly  up- 
dating information  on  disk.  Therefore, 
never,  ever  turn  off  the  computer  when  the 
program  is  accessing  the  disk  drive.  At 
the  very  least  you'll  forfeit  the  current 
game.  At  worst,  you  might  reset  the 
League  (a  real  heartbreaker)  or  even  per- 
manently damage  the  disk  itself.  Fast 
load  cartridges  are  also  a  must — the  pro- 
gram features  several  periods  of  long,  slow 
disk  access. 


28    AUGUST  1988 


est  1542 


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B4  and  128  Software  Reviews/Superstar  Soccer 


with  other  teams  in  the  League.  Make 
them  an  offer  they  can't  refuse.  Curiously, 
the  computer  will  never  initiate  a  trade. 
Finally,  send  your  team  to  training  camp. 
to  boost  each  player's  overall  rating. 

Superstar  Soccer  offers  several  vari- 
ations of  play:  one-player,  two-player 
head-to-head  (practice  only),  two-player 
cooperative  mode,  and  the  computer  play- 
ing itself.  Depending  on  the  mode  select- 
ed, you  must  also  decide  who  will  handle 
each  team's  goalie,  center  and  coaching 
responsibilities.  In  single-player  mode,  for 
example,  you  may  control  the  coach  (nigh- 
ly  recommended l  and  the  center  or  goalie 
(but  not  both).  The  computer  controls  any 
remaining  positions. 

Game  play  consists  of  both  on-field  ac- 
tion and  the  coaching  screen.  As  coach, 
constantly  adapt  your  team's  offense  and 
defense  for  maximal  impact. 

For  offense  choose  either  "pass"  or 
"shoot."  The  Pass  strategy  gives  ball  con- 
trol to  the  Center  Forward  whenever  pos- 
sible. Shoot  is  an  effective  strong-arm  of- 
fense for  aggressive  play,  particularly 
when  you  are  behind  in  the  game.  In  this 
mode,  Wingbacks  get  off  a  lot  of  shots  and 
play  the  rebound  well. 

On  defense,  choose  Defend  1  for  an  ul- 


tra-conservative defense  (when  sitting  on 
a  big  lead),  or  Defend  2  for  slightly  looser 
zone  play.  Cover  1  switches  to  man-to-man 
defense,  often  used  when  playing  "catch- 
up." In  this  mode,  Wingbacks  take  risks, 
go  for  the  steal,  bump  and  harass  the  oth- 
er team.  Often  this  results  in  fouls,  injur- 
ies and  lost  opportunities.  Cover  2  is  simi- 
lar, but  even  more  aggressive. 

Finally,  as  head  coach  you  can  make 
player  substitutions  during  the  game.  Re- 
place tired  or  injured  players  with  back- 
ups, but  be  careful  not  to  place  them  out  of 
their  natural  positions.  A  left  Wingback 
makes  a  lousy  Goalie. 

The  on-screen  action  is  both  fast  and  fu- 
rious, set  against  a  beautifully  scrolling 
field.  Graphics  are  quite  small  but  feature 
highly  detailed  animation.  Of  special 
note:  Players  are  represented  as  solid, 
three-dimensional  bodies.  They  do  not  nin 
straight  through  each  other  like  ghost  im- 
ages, but  will  bump  (and  often  fall  down). 

Joystick  control  is  almost  perfect.  Play- 
ers dribble  the  ball  automatically  and 
kick  the  ball  with  the  aid  of  a  directional 
indicator  at  the  top  of  the  screen.  Passing 
the  ball  I  when  playing  Center)  is  tricky, 
but  once  learned  can  make  a  big  differ- 
ence in  your  game  plan. 


Center  Forwards  use  several  tricks  to 
enhance  their  performance.  "Heading" 
the  ball  and  ""Bicycle"  kicks  are  both  effec- 
tive means  of  passing  and  scoring.  All 
players,  except  goalies,  have  this  ability. 
Centers  may  also  use  "aggressive  run- 
ning" (holding  the  fire  button  while  run- 
ning) for  burst  speeds  during  fast  breaks. 
Go  easy,  this  feature  is  very  tiring. 

The  art  of  Goalkeeping  is  not  covered 
much  in  the  manual.  Basically,  players 
simply  move  the  Goalie  into  position  and 
press  the  fire  button  to  block  a  shot.  The 
computer  automatically  selects  the  appro- 
priate defense  (dive,  leap,  etc.).  A  Goalie's 
recovery  time  is  very  important,  con- 
trolled by  his  skill  level. 

Injuries  are  common  and  send  a  star 
player  to  the  bench  for  an  entire  season. 
For  the  most  part,  this  is  merely  random 
misfortune.  Games  are  also  under  the  ea- 
gle eye  of  some  tough  referees.  Penalties 
and  free  kicks  occur  frequently. 

Sports  games  come  and  go,  often  losing 
their  appeal  with  repeated  play.  Superstar 
Soccer  thrives  on  constant  play,  getting 
better  and  better  as  your  skill  increases.  A 
wide  variety  of  integrated  features  makes 
this  one  of  the  finest  spoils  games  avail- 
able for  the  Commodore  64.  _ 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE     29 


AMICA^SOFTWARE  REVIEWS 

Zoom! 


Reviewed  by  Russ  Ceccola 


Computer: 
Publisher: 


Price: 


Amiga 

Discovery  Software 

International 

163  Conduit  St. 

Annapolis,  MI)  21401 

$29.95 


Arcade  games  for  home  computers 
never  seem  to  measure  up.  Either 
they  lack  the  game  play  or  intensity  of  the 
original  arcade  version  of  the  game,  or 
they  don't  have  enough  excitement  and 
originality  to  stand  alone  in  an  arcade. 
Discovery  Software  International  has 
found  the  "right  stuff'  as  far  as  arcade 
games  go  for  the  Amiga.  Their  first  game 
was  a  translation  of  the  hit  game  Arkan- 
oid  to  the  home  market.  The  Amiga  ver- 
sion was  excellent— the  only  home  trans- 
lation of  an  arcade  game  to  duplicate  the 
original  exactly.  With  the  release  of 
Zoom!,  Discovery  Software  International 
is  sure  to  have  another  hit— this  time 
with  an  addictive,  original,  highly  enter- 
taining chase  game. 

In  Zoom!  you  move  a  small  ball  called 
"Zoomer"  around  a  grid  that  you  see  in  a 
full  three-dimensional  perspective.  There 
are  so  many  intricacies  to  the  game  play 
of  Zoom!  that  Discovery  Software  Interna- 
tional should  consider  marketing  Zoom! 
to  an  arcade  game  manufacturer.  As  you 
move  Zoomer  around  the  grid  of  squares, 
he  (?)  leaves  a  lightly  colored  trail  behind 
him.  If  you  surround  a  square  in  the  grid 
in  this  manner,  the  square  is  colored  in. 
The  object  of  Zoom!  is  to  move  Zoomer 
around  the  grid,  coloring  every  square 
while  avoiding  all  of  the  creatures  that  are 
chasing  him. 

Zoom!  has  50  levels,  of  which  I've  only 
seen  eight.  Before  you  scream  that  I 
shouldn't  have  reviewed  this  game  after 
playing  it  for  such  a  seemingly  brief  time, 
let  me  mention  that  the  programmers 
themselves  have  only  made  it  to  level  12. 
Why  is  this  so?  Zoom!  is  easy  to  play,  but 
every  time  you  think  you  have  the  level 
finished,  something  else  pops  up  to  stop 
you — something  the  programmers  have 
come  to  refer  to  as  the  "oops  factor."  Don't 
worry — the  game  is  really  easy  to  play 
(the  truth),  and  most  of  your  time  will  be 
spent  refining  your  skills  on  each  level. 

Each  grid  that  I've  seen  in  Zoom!  is  en- 
tirely different  and  requires  a  new  strate- 
gy to  finish.  After  the  first  one,  most  levels 
have  square  gaps  in  the  grid  that  require 


Zoom!  is  easy 

to  play,  but 

every  time  you 

think  you 

have  the  level 

finished, 

something  else 

pops  up  to 

stop  you, 


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more  preparation  and  planning  to  avoid 
and  draw  around.  Sometimes,  these  gaps 
have  only  one  square  spanning  them;  at 
other  times,  the  gaps  are  only  one  or  two 
squares  wide.  In  any  case,  prepare  for  the 
worst  as  you  play  Zoom!  Watch  out  for 
Black  Holes  that  appear  at  the  intersec- 
tion of  lines  of  the  squares  at  the  comers, 
preventing  you  from  finishing  those  four 
squares  and  causing  you  to  lose  a  life  if 
you  fall  in  the  hole.  These  holes  move 
throughout  the  course  of  the  level,  and 
they  may  pop  up  just  as  you're  finishing  a 
square — the  "oops  factor"  again. 

Zoom!  is  more  than  just  surrounding 
the  squares  with  your  trail.  The  two 
things  that  ensure  this  are  the  various  bo- 
nus items  that  pop  up  throughout  the  grid 
that  you  can  run  over  with  Zoomer  and 
the  various  creatures  that  you  encounter. 
All  of  the  creatures  that  I've  seen  will  kill 
Zoomer  with  a  touch.  Jaggernaut  simply 
chases  you,  but  other  bugs  (Wormletts) 
chase  you  and  color  over  your  trail  with  a 
darker  color,  meaning  that  you  have  to  re- 
draw that  trail.  You  inevitably  bump  into 
Spheroids  as  they  move  back  and  forth  in 
a  straight  line.  I  know  that  there  are  more 
enemies  on  the  grids  past  level  eight,  but  I 
haven't  seen  any  of  them  except  in  demos 
and  screen  shots. 

The  presence  of  the  bonus  items  is  the 
make-or-break  feature  that  confirms  the 
success  of  Zoom!  There  are  eight  bonus 


items  that  may  pop  up  on  the  grid.  You 
collect  them  simply  by  moving  Zoomer 

i  over  them.  Only  by  knowing  what  the  bo- 
nus items  are  good  for  can  you  fully  appre- 
ciate Zoom!  The  eight  bonus  items  are 
named:  slow  down,  quadro,  bonus  points, 
next  level,  magic,  freeze,  speed/points  and 
nobody  knows.  A  brief  description  suffices 
for  each,  but  first  I  must  describe  some 
strategy  that  is  involved  in  Zoom! 

On  the  display  screen  are  two  meters  on 
either  side  of  your  score  and  the  cun-ent 
level:  a  magic  power  meter  and  a  point 
meter.  The  point  meter  is  where  strategy 
comes  into  play.  You  might  be  tempted 
to — and  sometimes  have  to — surround 
only  one  square.  You  get  a  certain  amount 
of  points  every  time  you  do  this.  The  high- 
er the  point  meter,  the  more  points  you  get 
per  square.  However,  the  meter  goes  down 
gradually,  reducing  the  number  of  points 

I  you  get  per  square.  To  get  more  points  per 
square,  you  have  to  increase  the  meter 
height.  You  do  this  by  leaving  the  line  be- 
tween two  squares  uncovered,  finish  the 
other  three  sides  of  both  squares  and  then 
get  the  line  between  them,  thus  coloring 
two  squares  at  once.  The  meter  goes  back 
up  (with  an  audio  indicator!  and  you  will 

!  get  the  maximum  points  per  square.  You 
have  to  continually  color  two  squares  at 
once  to  keep  the  meter  high  and  get  more 
points.  Leaving  squares  open  like  this 
brings  strategy  into  play. 


30    AUGUST  1988 


,yc\iYWi  '(i\if;rjrjT;rir'-Mm 


1-800-782-2278^.^ 


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Amiga  Software  Reviews/Zoom! 

The  "slow  down"  bonus  item  is  a  tube  of 
glue.  When  you  run  over  it,  the  enemies 
slow  down,  but  you  move  at  regular  speed. 
The  "quadra"  item  is  a  red  apple  that  sits 
at  the  intersection  of  squares.  When  you 
collect  this  item,  the  number  of  squares 
(up  to  four)  that  are  connected  at  that  in- 
tersection are  automatically  colored  in. 
The  "bonus  points"  item  is  a  yellow  money 
bag  that  adds  points  to  your  score.  The 
"next  level"  item  is  a  gray  rocket  ship  that 
immediately  takes  you  to  the  next  level. 

The  "magic"  item  is  a  blue  vial  and  is 
the  most  important  to  get.  When  you  run 
over  it.  the  magic  meter  goes  to  the  top, 
and  as  long  as  there  is  still  something  left 
on  the  meter  which  gradually  goes  down 
like  the  points  meter,  you  are  invincible. 
You  can  pass  through  enemies  without 
losing  a  Zoomer,  and  the  only  thing  that 
can  kill  you  are  the  Black  Holes.  The 
"freeze"  item  is  an  ice  cube  and  stops  all 
opponents  for  a  few  seconds.  The  "speed/ 
points"  is  a  piece  of  candy  and  adds  to 
your  score  and  your  speed  a  bit. 

The  "nobody  knows"  item  is  a  red  ques- 
tion mark  that  takes  second  priority  to 
collect  after  the  "magic"  item.  The  "no- 
body knows"  item  can  act  like  any  of  the 


other  items  and  shows  how  it  is  acting  by 
displaying  a  picture  of  its  current  use  at 
the  top  of  the  screen.  This  item  can  also 
give  and  take  away  Zoomers  and  give 
points,  as  well  as  create  a  hole  right  where 
it  was  for  you  to  drop  through. 

Playing  Zoom!  involves  making  sure 
that  you  collect  the  right  items,  keep  the 
point  meter  high  and  try  to  clear  all  the 
squares  as  quickly  as  possible.  This  is 
easier  said  than  done!  Ultimately,  the 
longer  you  can  keep  the  magic  meter  ac- 
tive, the  easier  a  particular  level  may  be. 
Immediately  go  for  any  "next  level"  items 
that  come  up  and  "freeze"  items  to  give 
you  free  room  to  move.  Also,  take  your 
chances  with  the  "nobody  knows"  item; 
chances  are  that  you  won't  get  a  hole  or 
lose  a  Zoomer. 

In  addition  to  the  bonus  items,  you  also 
have  three  bombs  that  you  can  use  to  cre- 
ate tiny  gaps  in  the  outline  of  the  grid  for 
any  enemies  close  on  your  tail.  These  stop 
the  enemy  (and  you)  from  moving  over 
that  part  of  the  grid  for  a  second  or  two. 
The  enemy  can  munch  the  space  up,  but 
you  have  to  wait  until  it  clears.  Don't  get 
yourself  stuck  between  gaps  that  you  cre- 
ated! The  bombs  rejuvenate  themselves, 
so  don't  worry  about  losing  them. 


You  can  play  Zoom!  in  one-player,  two- 
player  alternating,  or  two-player  competi- 
tion modes.  By  far  the  most  interesting  is 
the  latter.  In  this  mode,  both  players  are 
on  the  screen  at  the  same  time  and  are 
trying  to  finish  the  screen  before  the  other 
while  getting  the  most  points.  Although 
you  can't  erase  the  other  player's  squares, 
you  can  sure  beat  him  to  them.  So  think 
fast  and  grab  those  squares  in  pairs  to  get 
the  most  points  and  beat  your  opponent. 

The  most  important  part  of  Zoom!  that 
separates  it  from  other  arcade  games  is 
the  fact  that  it  was  written  for  the  Amiga. 
This  means  that  the  colors,  animation 
and  sounds  are  superb.  The  introduction 
animation  sequence,  featuring  the  Zoom- 
land  magic  show  is  the  best  animation 
I  have  ever  seen  on  the  Amiga — and 
that's  just  the  introduction  screen.  The 
sounds  throughout  the  game  are  great, 
combining  music  and  sound  effects  to  give 
that  arcade  feel.  I  honestly  think  that 
Zoom!  will  top  the  home  computer  arcade 
game  charts  in  no  time.  Zoom!  has  an  in- 
teresting objective,  addictive  quality  I  that 
almost  kept  me  from  writing  this  review 
on  time),  better-than-arcade  quality 
graphics  and  sound,  and  it's  easy  to  play. 
What  more  could  you  ask  for?  Q 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE     31 


/WUGA  SOFTWARE  REVIEWS 


Reviewed  by  Steve  King 


Ferrari 
Formula  One 


Computer: 
Publisher: 


Price: 


Amiga 

Electronic  Arts 
1820  Gateway  Dr. 
San  Mateo,  CA  94404 
$49.95 


In  an  effort  to  distinguish  Ferrari  For- 
mula One  from  the  myriad  of  racing 
games  on  the  market,  Electronic  Arts  has 
decided  to  designate  it  as  a  "Grand  Prix 
racing  simulation."  What's  the  difference? 
To  appreciate  what  Electronic  Arts  has 
done,  a  little  racing  background  is  re- 
quired. The  Grand  Prix  is  not  a  single 
race,  but  a  series  of  races  which  take  place 
from  March  through  October  all  over  the 
world.  One  class  of  race  is  Formula  One 
which  is  a  specific  set  of  vehicle  param- 
eters which  all  entry  vehicles  must  meet. 
In  this  simulation,  you  are  the  proud  own- 
er of  a  1986  Ferrari  Formula  One,  and 
your  goal  is  to  fine  tune  your  vehicle  so 
you  can  race  (and  hopefully  win)  at  the  16 
tracks  on  the  1986  Grand  Prix  circuit. 

When  the  program  begins,  the  Race 
Control  Pane!  appears  showing  the  date, 
time,  skill  level  and  information  about  the 
race  track  you're  at.  At  this  point,  you 
have  the  option  of  changing  any  of  these 
parameters,  including  skipping  ahead  to 
the  track  of  your  choice.  But  if  you're  play- 
ing the  whole  simulation,  it's  best  to  leave 
things  be  as  you  will  start  out  at  Fiorano, 
Italy — home  base  for  your  Ferrari.  At 
each  track,  a  Paddock  Screen  is  displayed, 
the  paddock  being  the  "backstage"  area 
adjacent  to  the  racetrack.  What  you  see  is 
a  view  of  a  number  of  buildings,  each  re- 
presenting a  different  function.  At  Fior- 
ano, as  opposed  to  the  rest  of  the  tracks, 
there  are  more  facilities  available.  You 
have  at  your  disposal  seven  different 
areas,  including  the  pit,  a  wind  tunnel 
and  a  garage.  An  icon  at  the  top  left  of  the 
screen  indicates  the  weather— an  impor- 
tant factor  in  any  race.  To  select  the  area 
you  wish  to  enter,  just  hold  down  the 
mouse  button  and  move  the  pointer  across 
the  screen.  The  pointer  arrow  will  change 
as  you  pass  over  the  different  buildings 
and  areas,  and  you  release  the  button  to 
go  there. 

As  this  is  a  simulation,  you  have  control 
over  the  varioas  systems  on  your  Ferrari. 
To  access  these,  vou  must  visit  either  the 


Each  Grand  Prix  race  has  six 
distinct  track  sessions  which 
are  spread  out  over  three 
days. 


garage  or  the  pit.  Here,  you  find  an  over- 
head view  of  your  vehicle  surrounded  by 
various  pieces  of  equipment.  Dragging  the 
mouse  pointer  icon  over  various  sections 
of  your  vehicle  (wheels,  engine,  suspen- 
sion, racing  wings)  and  releasing  the 
mouse  button  displays  the  control  panels 
for  each  of  those  systems.  You  can  vary 
such  items  as  tire  composition,  gear  ratio, 
air/fuel  mixture,  wing  angle,  suspension, 
etc.  Different  combinations  of  settings  will 
produce  different  results  on  the  track,  de- 
pending on  the  number  of  curves,  weather 
conditions  and  type  of  race.  If  you're  really 
at  a  loss  to  figure  out  just  how  everything 
should  be  adjusted,  all  you  have  to  do  is 
ask  Mauro.  Mauro?  Who's  Mauro?  Mauro 
is  your  ever-knowledgeable  crew  chief. 
Like  Carlton  the  doorman,  you  will  never 
see  him,  but  his  presence  is  made  known 
on  the  system  control  panels  where  his 
recommendations  are  always  indicated. 
No  need  to  follow  them,  but . . . 

There  are  several  ways  to  test  the  re- 
sults of  your  adjustments.  The  first  is  the 
Wind  Tunnel  where  you  can  check  your 
Ferrari's  wings.  Using  the  mouse,  you 
change  the  wing  angle  and  increase  the 
wind  speed.  As  you  do  this,  a  dynamic 
wind  performance  graph  indicates  the  re- 
sults of  your  efforts.  The  second  is  the 
Dyno  Room  where  you  can  continually 
change  the  age  of  your  engine,  the  air  fuel 
ratio,  the  turbocharger  settings,  and  the 


RPM  to  obtain  a  dynamic  graph  analysis 
of  performance.  The  last  and  perhaps  best 
way  to  test  your  adjustments,  however,  is 
to  actually  take  a  spin  around  the  test 
track. 

On  the  track,  your  view  is  from  the 
cockpit  of  your  Ferrari  with  a  rear-view 
mirror  on  either  side.  A  box  at  the  top 
right  contains  race  information  isuch  as 
time  and  laps),  and  a  simplified  dash- 
board control  panel  monitors  your  sys- 
tems. Your  tires  have  faint  white  lines 
across  them  which  change  during  the  race 
to  indicate  wear  and  the  possible  need  to 
pull  into  the  pit  to  change  tires.  At  the 
lower  skill  levels,  the  gears  change  auto- 
matically as  your  speed  changes,  but  at 
higher  levels,  you  shift  using  the  key- 
board (which  also  controls  the  turboboost). 
Acceleration,  braking  and  steering  are 
controlled  by  the  mouse.  To  begin,  just 
push  the  mouse  button,  rev  'er  up,  and 
take  off.  Steering  at  high  speeds,  particu- 
larly around  murderous  curves,  is  ex- 
tremely difficult  and  often  frustrating 
with  the  mouse— even  with  practice.  But 
if  you  start  with  slower  speeds,  the  task 
becomes  manageable.  There  is  also  a  Pas- 
senger mode  option  where  you  can  sit 

■  back  and  leave  the  driving  to  the  Amiga. 

|  At  the  end  of  each  lap,  you  can  pull  off  to 

!  the  side  and  go  to  the  pit  where  you  can 

:  service  your  vehicle. 

Continued  on  page  11 


32     AUGUST  1988 


*n  &n 


i 


k  nd  Q-Link,  the  dynamic  telecommunications  service  (or 
£1  Commodore®  owners,  does  just  that! 

1 JL    As  the  developer  of  GEOS,  the  graphics  environment  operating 
system  for  Commodore  64s  and  128s,  I  know  how  good  Q-Link  is. 
Personally  and  professionally.  Here  at  my  company,  we  recommend 
Q-Link  to  all  our  customers.  We  use  it  ourselves,  too,  for  online 
customer  service ...  so  you  can  get  help  when  you  need  it.  We've 
also  found  it's  a  very  efficient  way  to  provide  upgrades  and  patches 
and  to  announce  new  GEOS-compatible  products. 

With  just  your  Commodore,  a  modem  and  Q-Link  software,  a  new- 
world  of  persona!  computing  options  opens  up:  thousands  of 
programs  you  can  download  and  keep;  advanced  graphics  (thanks 
to  GEOS);  an  exclusive  help  line  to  experts  at  Commodore; 
online  educational  courses  taught  by  real  teachers;  fun;  games: 
friendship,  you-name-it.  Q-Link  lets  you  realize  the  full  potential  of 
Commodore  computing -right  at  your  fingertips. 

Do  I  use  Q-Link?  Absolutely!  And  what's  really  impressive  is  that 
when  you  join  Q-Link,  you  get  a  modem  and  Q-Link  Software  free!  To 
my  mind  that's  a  tough  offer  to  turn  down.  But  don't  take  my  word 
for  it.  Find  out  for  yourself.  Call . . . 


1-800-782-2278. 


riMT /(MfAA/Oai  15*2 
Call  today  to  get  your  tree  modem  and  software. 


1  t  >*•)*> 

■    i>— *ir»    ■  fa  mint 

.    :.     1 

\j    f#$ 

J ''■-■«■  1 

1    :  !','*"' 

1 

iRiffBiTa  H 

liUllhdl 

5RIAN0OUGHERTY 

Software  Designer/CEO 
Berkeley  Softworks 


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^AMIGA^ SOFTWARE  REVIEWS 

Publisher  Plus 


Computer:  Amiga 

Publisher.    Brown- Wagh  Publishing  Co. 
16795  Lark  Avenue,  Suite  210 
Los  Gates,  CA  95030 

Price:         $99.95 


Because  the  term  is  used  loosely,  there 
are  not  as  many  "desktop  publish- 
ing" programs  for  the  Amiga  as  you  might 
think.  Lacking  an  industry  definition,  the 
category  has  been  so  haphazardly  applied 
to  any  program  including  pictures  and 
type  on  the  same  page. 

For  this  reason,  it  is  a  pleasure  to  find 
Publisher  Pius  which  fits  the  narrower 
definition.  A  revised  version  of  Publisher 
1000,  which  debuted  almost  a  year  ago, 
Publisher  Plus  corrects  the  faults  of  the 
earlier  program,  adds  the  ability  to  print 
through  the  Postscript  language/ 
protocol  (for  laser  printers)  and  emerges 
as  one  of  the  front-runners  in  a  race  where 
not  all  contenders  are  legitimate. 

The  heart  of  desktop  publishing  is  the 
elastic  box  (here  called  a  guide)  that  must 
be  stretched  into  place  on  the  blank  page. 
Into  these  guides,  you  then  pour  text  or 
graphics — but  only  one  or  the  other  to 
each  guide — and  it  is  this  system  that  al- 
lows the  mixing  of  fonts  as  well  as  the 
mixing  of  text  and  graphics  on  the  same 
page.  Think  of  each  guide  as  a  separate 
page  which,  when  combined,  gives  you  a 
full  publishable  page. 

Since  most  of  us  equate  publishing  with 
newsletters,  Publisher  Plus  uses  that  for- 
mat as  a  default  setting.  There  is  a  large 
area  for  headlines  or  logos,  and  below  that 
the  remainder  of  the  page  is  divided  into 
three  equal  columns/guides.  Since  this 
can  be  changed  through  the  requestor 
window — specifying  two  or  four  columns 
or  changing  margins,  for  example — the 
laying-out  of  a  blank  page  is  the  easiest 
I've  seen  yet, 

Nor  it  is  necessary  to  strictly  adhere  to 
conventional  forms:  any  guide  on  the  page 
can  be  moved  or  resized  as  necessary,  us- 
ing the  same  methods  you'd  use  on  a 
Workbench  window,  unwanted  guides 
may  be  deleted  with  a  few  mouse  clicks, 
and  new  guides  may  be  added. 

Once  the  guides  are  placed  to  your  sat- 
isfaction, it's  time  to  enter  text.  Unlike 
some  other  programs,  Publisher  Plus  al- 
lows you  to  type  directly  into  the  column/ 
guide  you'll  be  using  and  provides  such 


A  revised  version  of 
Publisher  1000,  Publisher 
P/us  corrects  the  faults  of 

the  earlier  program  and  adds 
new  features. 

word  processing  tools  as  insert,  delete  and 
backspace,  as  well  as  cut,  copy  and  paste. 
,   Once  a  column  becomes  lengthy,  this  can 
be  a  slow  process  as  the  graphic  updating 
of  the  screen  lags  behind  your  typing 
speed.  This  screen  updating  has  been 
greatly  improved  over  Publisher  1000, 
however,  and  in  Plus  the  problem  seems 
negligible. 

As  an  alternative,  text  may  be  written 
and  edited  on  some  of  the  more  popular 
word  processors  for  the  Amiga,  saved  in 
ASCII  format,  and  then  "flowed"  into  the 
appropriate  guide.  Because  this  makes  it 
more  difficult  to  judge  the  amount  of  space 
necessary  to  hold  your  words,  Publisher 
Plus  gives  you  an  overflow  feature  which 
allows  a  text  file  too  large  for  one  column 
to  spill  over  into  the  adjoining  column. 

Fonts  are  also  necessary  to  desktop  pub- 
lishing, and  eight  fonts  are  provided  on 
the  program  disk  in  9, 12,  24  and  32  point 
sizes.  For  those  who  wish  a  greater  vari- 
ety, the  program  is  compatible  with  Zuma 
Fonts.  Any  font  used  is  also  capable  of  be- 
ing altered  by  the  standard  Amiga  styles 
(bold,  underline  or  italics)  or  combinations 
of  these.  Each  font  must  occupy  its  own 
guide.  For  example,  a  masthead  with 
three  fonts  used  to  create  the  name,  the 
publisher's  name  and  the  issue  date  would 
require  three  guides. 

Another  prerequisite  of  true  desktop 
publishing  is  the  ability  to  make  text  look 
as  if  it  were  typeset.  Normal  justifications 
such  as  left,  right,  center  and  full- 
though  helpful— will  not  do  the  entire  job. 
Publisher  Plus  addresses  this  by  provid- 
ing both  a  "kerning"  and  a  "microspacing" 
feature.  Although  the  terms  are  some- 
times used  interchangeably,  microspacing 


Reviewed  by  Ervin  Bobo 


allows  automatic  spacing  adjustment  be- 
tween all  letters  in  your  manuscript  while 
kerning  allows  such  spacing  on  an  indi- 
vidual letter  basis.  Added  to  this  is  the 
ability  to  adjust  'leading,"  the  amount  of 
spacing  between  lines  of  type — normally  a 
function  controlled  by  the  selected  font. 

Through  requestor  windows,  you  specify 
the  amount  of  microspacing  or  leading 
and  then  reflow  the  text.  Because  of  the 
WYSIWYG  display,  you'll  know  almost 
immediately  whether  further  adjustments 
are  needed. 

Without  these  three  formatting  fea- 
tures, the  claim  of  many  programs  to  be 
desktop  publishing  is  dubious.  With  them, 
Publisher  Plus  legitimates  its  own  claims. 

No  guides  are  necessary  to  add  graphics 
to  a  page.  By  placing  a  graphic  directly  on 
the  page,  it  becomes  subject  to  "cropping," 
in  which  unwanted  portions  can  be  de- 
leted; and  to  resizing,  in  which  the  entire 
picture  can  usually  be  made  to  fit  the 
available  space.  Of  course,  resizing  in  only 
one  direction — making  the  picture  taller, 
for  instance — will  result  in  some  distor- 
tion of  the  image. 

Graphics  can  be  created  with  any  pro- 
gram that  stores  pictures  in  the  standard 
IFF  format,  but  since  Publisher  Plus  uses 
only  black-and-white  renderings,  I'd  sug- 
gest you  create  original  art  in  only  those 
colors.  Full-color  artwork  imported  to  your 
page  will  be  shaded  into  black-and-white, 
resulting  in  a  loss  of  detail.  Digitized  pic- 
tures and  those  created  through  a  HAM 
process,  (even  in  IFF  format)  usually  con- 
tain such  a  wide  range  of  delicate  shad- 
ings that  their  renderings  by  Publisher 
Plus  leave  no  detail  at  all. 

Text  cannot  be  flowed  around  graph- 
ics— since  they  occupy  separate  guides — 
but  the  appearance  of  such  flowing  can  be 
achieved  by  placing  your  graphic  on  the 
page  and  then  creating  text  guides  around 
it  that  you'll  later  fill  with  words. 

To  test  this,  invoke  the  Full  Page  Pre- 
view feature.  Because  Publisher  Plus 
shows  only  about  one-eighth  of  your 
page — with  smooth  scrolling  to  any  part — 
you  may  often  find  yourself  wondering 
how  things  are  going.  With  the  preview 
feature,  a  representation  of  your  full  page 
will  appear  at  the  right  side  of  the  screen, 
giving  you  a  total  view  of  your  layout. 

For  printing,  you  can  choose  from  the 
full  range  of  printers  supported  by  Work- 
bench including  the  Hewlett-Packard  La- 
Continued  on  page  45 


34    AUGUST  1988 


SOFTWARE  REVIEWS' 


Reviewed  by  Steve  King 


Photon  Paint 

Computer:  Amiga 
Publisher:    MicroIUusions 

17408  Chatsworth  St. 

Granada  Hills,  CA  91344 
Price:  .$99.95 

Until  recently,  many  graphic  design 
programs  didn't  really  take  advan- 
tage of  all  of  the  Amiga's  capabilities. 
Photon  Paint  is  a  "state  of  the  art"  HAM 
(Hold  and  Modify)  paint  program  which 
fully  utilizes  the  graphic  powers  of  the 
Amiga  and  provides  a  number  of  unique 
and  powerful  professional  features  at  a 
very  reasonable  price.  Most  remarkable  is 
its  ability  to  let  you  draw  with  and  display 
all  4096  colors  on  the  screen  at  the  same 
time! 

A  horizontal  "fast  menu"  which  takes 
up  a  quarter  of  the  screen  provides  access 
to  the  basic  drawing  functions  (lines,  rec- 
tangles, circles,  etc.)  as  well  as  select  col- 
ors. MicroDlusions  thoughtfully  allows 
you  to  move  this  menu  around  the  screen 
to  get  it  out  of  the  way.  While  the  fast 
menu  may  seem  quite  familiar  if  you 
have  used  other  paint  programs,  the  simi- 
larity stops  there.  Appearing  on  the  left 
side  of  the  fast  menu  are  64  (count  'em, 
64)  separate  colors  from  which  to  choose. 
You  have  the  option  of  extending  the  fast 
menu  to  display  the  color  palette.  To  the 
left  are  three  squares  representing  the 
three  dimensions  of  a  color  cube.  By  mani- 
pulating the  mouse  pointer  in  these 
squares,  you  can  choose  any  one  of  the 
4096  colors  available  and  assign  it  to  one 
of  the  64  squares.  You  can  also  change  col- 
ors by  clicking  on  one  of  the  squares  and 
manipulating  the  RGB  (red,  green,  blue) 
or  HSV  (hue,  saturation,  value)  sliders. 

Now  for  the  amazing  part.  If  you  paint- 
ed on  the  screen  using  the  color  from  color 
square  20,  you  can  change  that  square  to 
a  different  color  without  changing  the  col- 
or you  previously  painted  on  the  screen! 
Not  only  do  you  have  a  choice  of  4096  col- 
ors, but  you  can  also  use  all  of  them  in  the 
same  painting,  (although  it  may  take  a 
while  to  use  them  all). 

There  is,  however,  a  slight  glitch.  Be- 
cause of  the  way  the  Amiga  renders  HAM 
images,  certain  colors  when  placed  next  to 
or  on  top  of  other  colors  develop  a  fringe  of 
a  different  color  around  the  edges.  Un- 
sightly indeed.  Working  under  the  techni- 
cal restraints  of  the  hardware,  Photon 
Paint  seeks  to  minimize  these  occurrences 


I _-=====— 


I 


by  calculating  the  best  colors  to  use.  You 
can  even  instruct  the  program  to  modify 
its  colors  so  that  any  particular  color  you 
use  will  appear  without  the  fringes.  This 
option,  however,  may  cause  adjoining  or 
background  colors  to  change. 

By  the  way,  the  first  16  colors  are  the 
base  colors  from  which  all  the  remaining 
colors  are  derived.  The  default  values 
have  been  pre-selected  to  produce  the  best 
results  under  most  circumstances,  so  you 
should  probably  leave  those  squares 
alone.  You  can  also  create  a  spread  of  color 
shades  between  two  selected  colors  in  ei- 
ther the  RGB  or  HSV  mode,  as  well  as 
swap  and  copy  colors. 

The  fast  menu  also  gives  you  the  ability 
to  cut  out  a  portion  of  your  painting  to 
save  or  use  as  a  brash.  You  accomplish 
this  by  either  framing  a  rectangular  sec- 
tion of  the  screen  or  by  tracing  around  the 
particular  area  you  wish  to  capture.  One 
nice  feature  saves  your  custom  brush  in 
memory,  so  you  can  use  one  of  the  stan- 
dard brushes  and  then  restore  your  pre- 
vious brush  without  remaking  it. 

The  PLx  command  lets  you  to  pixelize 
any  portion  of  your  painting,  giving  it  a 
mosaic  effect.  You  can  even  adjust  the 
amount  of  pixelization. 

Like  other  paint  programs,  you  can 
magnify  selected  portions  of  the  screen  for 
fine  detailing.  Photon  Paint  allows  you  to 


select  various  levels  of  magnification  as 
well  as  the  size  of  your  magnification 
screen.  Text  is  easy  to  render  with  any 
standard  Amiga  font,  and  you  can  change 
font  disks  at  any  time  as  well  as  stylize 
any  font.  Two  special  options  let  you  pro- 
duce an  outline  as  well  as  a  reverse  image. 

Several  innovative  features  are  bound 
to  make  Photon  Paint  a  success.  The  first 
is  the  Blend  mode.  In  the  Normal  mode, 
any  graphics  rendered  on  the  screen  will 
appear  as  solid  images  which  totally  cover 
the  background  on  which  they  are  placed. 
Blend  lets  you  control  the  degree  to  which 
your  image  or  brush  overlays  what  is  be- 
neath it.  For  example,  if  you  have  a  pic- 
ture of  a  room  and  an  image  of  a  ghost, 
you  can  capture  the  ghost  as  a  brush  and 
place  it  in  the  room  so  that  the  room 
shows  through  the  ghost.  By  adjusting  the 
parameters,  you  can  make  the  ghost 
transparent  or  opaque.  When  using  the 
Blend  mode,  a  special  window  appears 
with  a  grey-scale  rendition  depicting  the 
extent  and  direction  of  the  blend. 

Using  the  mouse  in  a  variety  of  ways 
(including  drawing  graphs  in  a  rectangle) 
you  can  produce  virtually  unlimited  ef- 
fects. You  can  also  control  the  amount  of 
dither  (the  degree  to  which  your  image  is 
sharp  or  fuzzy),  although  the  colors  used 
in  dithering  cannot  be  specified  and  ap- 

Continued  on  page  41 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE     35 


WHAT'S  A  TAITO.  ? 


That's  a  very  good  question.  Taito  (pronounced  Tie-toe)  is 
one  of  the  oldest  and  biggest  names  in  the  arcade  industry.  We're 
the  world's  largest  manufacturer  and  operator  of  arcade  games. 
Taito's  been  in  the  business  since  1953. 

And  that's  just  the  beginning.  Taito  practically  started  the 

video  game  industry  with 
our  classic  arcade  hit, 


ARKANQiD:  33  screens  of  space-age  excitement.  Award  winning 
SpdCG      lnV3U&rS.M     And        coin-dp  hit.  Over  I  million  sold  in  Japan.  "One  of  the  best  ever," 

— Electronic  Game  Player  Maganne. 


j^-^^    over  the  years,  Taito  has  created  more  than  1,000  other  great 
action  games  for  arcade  and  home  play. 

Taito  has  something  equally  exciting  for  you  to  slip  into  your 
home  computer.  Taito  brings  the  same  pioneering  spirit,  technical 

RENEGADE:  This  is  the  one  and  only  Don't  settfe  tor  imitations. 

8l.stenng.fast  paced  and  real  life  street-style  Karate  action.  One  of  qua/f'ty  Bfld  eXC/temePt  that  made  US   the  SrCaCfe  leadGT  tO    VQUr 

the  hottest  games  in  Europe 

Commodore,  Amiga,  IBM,  Apple  and  Atari  computers.  Your  computer  won't  be  the  same  again. 

Taito  is  the  arcade  industry  leader  for  a  very  good  reason.  We  consistently  make  great  video  games 
that  bring  more  action,  thrills  and  value  to  the  people  who  play  our 
games.  And  literally  millions  of  people  play  our  games  in  arcades 
and  homes  all  over  the  world. 

Our  strength  comes  from  the  massive  development  effort 
we  put  into  creating  the  kind  of  games  that  satisfy  the  ever-growing 
arcade  appetite  and  the  research  gathered  from  the  more  than 
100,000  arcade  machines  Taito  operates  in  Japan.  (The  money  in 

,  ■      ,  .  .      i    ,         ,  „,  ..  ALCON:  The  ultimata  in  inter-planetary  combat.  Battle  aliens  with 

the  coin  boxes  at  the  end  of  the  day  tells  you  quickly  if  you  ve  got    lasers,  homing  missiles,  bombs  amtsMaus.  Fantastic  venka/aovinng 

luturQ-worid  landscapes, 

Taito  Software  Inc.  267  West  Esplanade  North  Vancouver,  BC  Canada  V7M1  A6  Teh  604-984-3344.       Sky  Shark  ^  and  Gladiator "»  are  trademarks  of  Tailo  America,  Inc.  Copyright  ©1988  AH  rights 
Taito?  Arkanoid™  Renegade,™  AlconJ"  Rastan™  Bubble  Bobble,™  Operation  Wolf,™       reserved  Amiga.  Commodore,  Apple  IBM  and  Atari  are  trademarks  respectively  of  Commodore- 


a  good  game  or  not.}  And  Taito  is  always  working  hard  to  develop 
the  most  exciting  new  video  games  that  push  the  technology  to 
its  limits*  We  don't  rest  on  our  laurels. 

Because  arcade  games  are  the  benchmark  for  home  video 
games,  Taito's  leadership  in  the  arcade  industry  means  that  when 
you  buy  Taito  products  you  will  be  getting  more  home  video  thrills 
—more  mesmerizing  arcade  quality  graphics,  spell-binding  sound 
and  above  all,  action! 


RASTAN:  One  of  the  biggest  coin-op  hits  of  1987,  Stunning  gmphics. 
Non-stop,  mythical  super  hero  action  wtth  multiple  weapons,  ene- 
mies  and  levels  of  pisy. 


That's  why  nobody  but  Taito  can  bring  you  more  of  what  you're  looking  for  in  home  computer  video 
games.  You  don't  get  to  be  the  biggest  in  the  arcade  business  by  making  run  of  the  mill  video  games. 

When  you  buy  Taito  games  you're  getting  more  than  just 
fun.  We  bring  you  games  that  test  your  nerve,  your  skill  and  your 
strategy.  Games  that  make  you  laugh  and  put  you  on  the  edge  of 
your  seat,  games  of  adventure  and  excitement.  Taito  takes  you  on 
incredible  mind  voyages  to  places  you've  never  been  before— to 
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/vyno^sonwARE  reviews- 


Reviewed  by  Gary  V.  Fields 


Fire  Power 

Computer:  Amiga 
Company:    Microlllusions 

17408  Chatsworth  St. 

Granada  Hills,  CA  91344 
Price:  $24.95 


Fire  Power  is  a  tank  game,  which  looks 
and  plays  like  nothing  ever  seen  on 
either  a  computer  screen  or  in  an  arcade 
cavern  before.  If  you  love  a  good  game 
which  mixes  arcade  action,  realistic 
sound,  and  the  challenge  of  a  real  battle, 
check  this  one  out. 

I  must  admit  I  have  a  prejudice  for  good 
war  games,  especially  ones  which  operate 
in  real  time.  So  for  me,  the  six  months 
which  passed  between  the  time  I  saw  the 
pre-release  version  of  Fire  Power  and  the 
finished  game  were  annoyingly  slow.  But 
the  polished  graphics,  digitized  sound  ef- 
fects, real-time  speed  and  bug-free  oper- 
ation of  the  completed  Fire  Power  game 
have  made  the  delay  worth  the  wait. 

One  of  the  first  arcade  games  I  fell  in 
love  with  (hack  when  displays  were  black 
and  white,  graphics  were  blocks  and 
games  ate  quarters)  was  called  Tanks.  In 
that  game  you  and  your  human  opponent 
battled  across  a  single  screen  and  the 
tanks  rumbled  and  reacted  at  an  annoy- 
ingly slow  pace,  but  the  game  and  human 
competition  was  great.  The  only  resem- 
blance Fire  Power  has  to  that  old  arcade 
game  is  that  it  uses  tanks  and  it's  fun. 

The  game  can  be  played  in  three  modes: 
(1)  human  against  human,  (2)  human 
against  computer,  plus  (3 )  human  against 
human  via  modem.  I  personally  prefer 
games  which  allow  me  to  compete  against 
another  person,  since  I  get  more  satisfac- 
tion from  beating  a  peer  than  a  micro- 
chip. So  I  appreciate  Fin  Power's  two  hu- 
man vs.  human  options.  When  playing 
against  another  person  i.  i  the  same  room, 
two  screen  windows  are  c  isplayed  showing 
both  gamer's  tanks  and  the  surrounding 
terrain.  When  the  two  tanks  come  into 
sight  of  each  other,  both  windows  display 
the  same  screen.  The  games  modem  op- 
tion supports  both  1200  and  2400  baud  ex- 
change rates.  Regardless  of  which  you  se- 
lect, the  action  is  fast,  challenging  and 
non-stop. 

You  also  have  the  option  to  select  which 
type  of  tank  you  will  command — each 
have  varying  strengths  and  weaknesses. 
Some  tanks  are  more  heavily  armored, 


The  game's  dozens  of 
unique  features  and 

actions  establish  new 
standards  that  other 

arcade  designers  will 

be  hustling  to  match. 


others  move  faster,  another  carries  more 
fuel  and  has  more  room  for  transporting 
men.  But  best  of  all,  the  game  has  no 
boundaries,  so  you  can  roam  endlessly 
without  running  up  against  an  artificial 
wall.  Neither  is  the  playing  field  static — 
each  time  you  boot  the  game  a  different 
battlefield  is  generated.  Certain  features 
always  appear,  but  not  in  the  same  loca- 
tion, including:  roads,  buildings,  gun- 
mounted  fortresses  (which  you  can  blast 
into),  two  hospitals,  fuel  depots,  infantry, 
mine  fields,  maintenance  garages,  attack- 
ing helicopters,  etc. 

The  object  of  the  game  always  remains 
the  same — to  use  your  single  tank  to  bat- 
tle through  all  the  enemy  defenses  and 
capture  its  headquarters  before  yours  is 
taken.  If  you  don't  keep  moving,  enemy 
helicopters  will  attack  you,  but  if  you 
don't  move  cautiously  into  new  territories 
you  may  fall  into  an  enemy  ambush  or 
mine  field.  If  anything  (trees,  walls,  build- 
ings, etc.)  gets  in  your  way,  you  can  blast 
them  away.  If  infantry  get  too  close,  you 
can  splat  (with  graphics  included),  blast  or 
rescue  them. 

When  playing  via  modem  the  game 
still  has  two  windows,  but  instead  of  one 
showing  your  tank's  position  while  the 
other  shows  your  opponent's  (as  in  the 
non-modem  modes),  one  window  displays 


terminal  operations.  Once  you  log  on  with 
your  opponent's  computer  (a  completely 
automated  activity)  you  can  send  typed 
messages  back  and  forth.  Apparently  the 
people  at  MicroIHusions  recognize  a  good 
idea  when  it  crosses  their  desks,  and  Fire 
Power's  modem  operation  was  one  (they 
are  releasing  a  whole  series  of  modem-ca- 
pable games).  The  ability  to  play  a  friend 
across  town  (or  across  country  if  you  can 
afford  the  long  distance  phone  charges  i  is 
a  real  plus  which  greatly  expands  the 
game's  fun  range.  If  you  are  like  me,  get- 
ting together  with  a  friend  for  an  hour  or 
so  of  games  isn't  always  easy,  but  finding 
the  time  to  phone  a  friend  for  a  chat  and  a 
quick  turn  at  "total  destruction"  isn't  so 
difficult.  The  one  drawback  is  that  both 
you  and  your  friend  must  have  a  copy  of 
Fire  Power  before  you  can  battle  over  the 
telephone  lines. 

The  game's  excellent  visual  displays, 
combined  with  some  unique  features 
make  it  an  arcade'wargame  which  stands 
out  from  the  pack.  While  it  has  all  the  tra- 
ditional shoot-'em-up  qualities  which  give 
most  arcades  their  appeal,  this  one  has 
more.  For  instance,  you  can  increase  your 
score  by  blasting  enemy  prisoner  barracks 
and  rescuing  captured  troops.  But  there  is 
a  problem — at  a  distance  all  infantry  look 
Continued  on  page  81 


38    /UJGUST1988 


EXPAND 
CAPABILITIES 


G  YOUR  PAINT 
AS  NEVI 


PHOTON  PAINT  IS  A  POWERFUL  LO-  AND 
HI-RESOLUTION  HOLD  AND  MODIFY  (HAM) 
PAINT  PROGRAM,  WITH  OVERSCAN  {  NTSC 
/PAL)  AND  SPECIAL  EFFECTS  FOR  THE  AMIGA 
COMPUTER! 

Now  many  of  the  features  and  techniques 
previously  only  available  in  separate  Amiga 
paint  programs  have  been  combined  and 
expanded  in  PHOTON  PAINT!  These  include 
features  that  were  limited  to  either  a  32  color 
paint  program,  or  a  HAM  paint  program,  Yet  it 
doesn't  stop  there!  PHOTON  PAINT  expands 
your  paint  capabilities  as  never  before  with 
these  features: 

•  64  color  palette  with  4,096  color  alterations 

•  State  of  the  art  Surface  Mapping  • 
Exceptionally  sophisticated  brush  operations 


k 

"'    1          H  i  -£ 

k-  ■  '■  i 

Uhl2M\ 

HM&L  1 

R  BEFORE 


•  Real-time  operation  of  drawing  tools  •  Paint 
in  exactly  the  color  you  choose  in  HAM  mode 

•  Allow  HAM  to  modify  colors  *  Two  types  of  fill 
functions  •  All  popular  brush  operations  •  Full 
blend  mode  •  Total  menu  movability  with 
brush  and  color  palette  menu  size  reduction 
option  •  Light  source  specification,  normal, 
intense  or  dithered  •  Unique  magnification 
window  with  variable  pixel  sizing  •  Transparent 
or  opaque  background  colors  •  Palette  color 
spreads  with  both  (RGB)  AND  (HSV)  functions 
•Compatible  with  most  third  party  art  and 
animation  systems,  including  Photon  Video, 

EXPAND  YOUR  CREATIVITY  TO 
A  NEW  DIMENSION,  PICK  UP 
PHOTON  PAINT  TODAY! 


f/f  '//'A 


17408  Chatsworth  St.,  Granada  Hills,  CA 91344 
Inside  CA  818/360-3715  •  Outside  CA  800/522-2041  •  FAX  618/360-1464 


12-112 


AM  I QA  SOFTWARE  REVIEWS 

Custom-BBS! 

Computer.  Amiga 

Publisher:   Celestial  Data  Systems,  Inc 

279  S.  Beverly  Drive 

Suite  1010 

Beverly  Hills,  CA  90212 
Price:  $100.00 


Just  when  you  thought  you  were  sitting 
in  sysop  heaven,  along  comes  Custom- 
BBS!  to  really  dazzle  your  callers.  With 
Custom-BBS!  you  can  have  a  totally  Cus- 
tomized Bulletin  Board  System  with  fea- 
tures previously  available  only  in  main- 
frame computers! 

Getting  Started 

First  make  a  backup  of  the  Custom- 
BBS!  disk.  {Custom-BBS!  has  no  copy 
protection  of  any  kind.)  From  now  on,  you 
should  use  your  backup  instead  of  the 
master  disk.  Next  sit  down  and  read  the 
manual  from  beginning  to  end  before  you 
even  try  to  alter  the  defaults  for  Custom- 
BBS! 

Now  you're  ready  to  run  Custom-BBS! 
Simply  insert  the  disk  in  drive  dffl:  and  it 
will  automatically  load  after  requesting 
the  current  date  and  time.  A  window  at 
the  top  of  the  screen  displays  the  current 
callers  name  and  I.D.  number  (if  there  is 
one);  the  current  date  and  time;  how  long 
it  has  been  since  the  last  caller;  the  users' 
statistics  (i.e.,  number  of  uploads,  down- 
loads, the  last  message  posted,  etc.);  and 
whether  or  not  the  caller  has  tried  to  page 
you. 

If  you  are  using  the  system  for  the  first 
time,  you  will  be  asked  if  you  wish  to  gen- 
erate main  BBS  files.  At  this  point,  you 
should  answer  Y.  lb  enter  the  system, 
press  the  space  bar,  and  to  exit  to  DOS 
press  the  ESC  key.  When  you  enter  the 
BBS,  you  will  see  the  login  text  followed 
by  a  prompt  requesting  your  ID.  number. 
Since  you  are  new  to  the  system,  type  N  at 
the  prompt.  This  will  take  you  through 
the  standard  new  user  information.  Since 
you  will  want  to  create  your  sysop  account 
when  doing  this,  you  should  answer  all 
the  prompts  correctly.  Next  you  will  be 
taken  back  to  the  request  for  your  ID. 
where  you  can  now  type  the  number  it 
gave  you  (it  should  be  I.D.  number  1). 
Type  in  your  I.D.  and  password,  and  you 
will  be  logged  into  the  system. 

Once  you  have  logged  in,  you  will  see 
the  main  menu.  The  first  thing  you 


should  do  is  select  the  Your  account  com- 
mand, and  change  your  access  level  to  sy- 
sop by  pressing  the  F5  key  and  then  the 
space  bar.  Now,  all  your  information  will 
be  stored,  and  your  sysop  account  will  be 
set  up.  You  will  then  see  every  command 
that  is  available  in  the  system.  Try  out  all 
the  commands,  and  have  fun  experiment- 
ing. If  you  mess  up,  just  re-copy  the  mas- 
ter disk  and  follow  the  procedures  above 
for  setting  your  sysop  account. 

Unique  Features 

First  I  can  safely  assure  you  that  all 
standard  BBS  commands  are  supported. 
The  most  unique  features  of  Custom- 
BBS!  include  random  pop-up  quotes,  im- 
portant dates  in  history  (according  to 
what  day  the  caller  logs  into  the  system), 
ANSI  colors,  the  support  of  up  to  9600 
baud,  the  ability  to  have  either  a  dating  or 
business  questionnaire,  up  to  75  different 
message  and  file  transfer  sections,  and 
voice-activated  sysop  paging.  Also,  you 
will  find  that  Custom-BBS!  supports  full 
multitasking  and  can  be  run  from  hard 
disk. 

Customizing  Your  Custom-BBS! 

Here  comes  the  fun  part,  customizing 
your  BBS!  lb  do  this,  you  will  need  either 
a  word  processor  or  text  editor  that  sup- 
ports standard  ASCII.  All  of  the  files  that 
Custom-BBS!  uses  for  access  are  standard 
ASCII,  including  the  menus.  This  gives 
you  full  control  of  how  you  wish  to  run 
your  system.  This  means  that  you  can  cre- 
ate your  own  ASCII  files,  save  them  to 
disk  and  recall  them  later  for  either  edit- 
ing or  creating  a  brand  new  file. 

There  are  too  many  files  that  make  up 
Custom-BBS!  to  discuss  here,  but  I  will 
talk  briefly  about  the  major  one, 


prompts.txt.  This  file  includes  all  of  the 
major  key  workings  for  your  BBS,  includ 
ing  the  menus.  In  this  file,  you  will  find 
the  log-in  text,  new-user  text  and  many 
other  items  you  can  edit.  The  most  unique 
feature  is  the  inclusion  of  menus  in  a 
standard  text  file.  This  will  allow  you  to 
simply  load  the  prompts.txt  file  and  edit 
the  menu  the  way  you  wish.  Custom- 
BBS!  supports  20  different  access  levels, 
giving  you  complete  control  over  all  of 
them.  Also,  you  can  alter  the  one  charac- 
ter symbols  for  all  20  levels  (i.e.,  level  20 
is  sysop  level  which  could  be  represented 
as  S).  However,  if  you  do  alter  the  user 
symbols,  be  sure  that  you  do  it  before  you 
generate  the  main  BBS  files.  If  you  don't, 
then  it  will  not  recognize  it  and  your  sys- 
tem will  malfunction.  This  BBS  can  be 
configured  in  any  way  you  wish  and  gives 
you  complete  control  over  all  functions. 

At  the  present  time,  you  have  only  two 
choices  of  how  to  run  your  BBS,  from  ei- 
ther floppy  or  hard  disk.  If  you  choose,  you 
can  run  your  entire  BBS  from  hard  disk 
by  simply  copying  the  BBS  files  in  the 
BBS  directory  to  the  hard  disk  BBS  direc- 
tory. The  other  method  is  somewhat  limit- 
ed, you  must  have  the  BBS  directory  in 
dfO:  and  the  files  directory  (upload  and 
download)  in  either  dfO:  or  dfl:.  However, 
they  will  be  improving  this  in  the  next 
version  (see  Summary). 

You  will  also  find  eight  different  pre-de- 
fined function  keys  for  the  sysop: 
Fl — force  chat  interrupt 
F2 — add  a  predetermined  number  of  min- 
utes to  online  caller 
F3 — change  online  user  to  level  three 
F4 — change  online  user  to  level  eight 
F5 — change  online  user  to  sysop 
F6 — turn  off  serial  device  to  make  the  sys- 
tem invisible  to  online  user 


40    AUGUST  1988 


Amiga  Software  Reviews/ Custom-BBS!" 

F7— toggle  printer  on/off 

F10 — disconnect  current  online  user 

A  Word  of  Warning 

The  copy  of  Custom-BBS!  I  used  for  re- 
view had  a  major  flaw  in  the  startup-se- 
quence. I  kept  getting  a  GURU  MEDITA- 
TION ERROR  when  I  was  testing  the 
questionnaire.  This  was  due  to  the  fact 
that  the  startup-sequence  did  not  set  the 
stack  to  15000  bytes  before  the  BBS  was 
run.  If  this  is  not  added  to  the  startup-se- 
quence, the  system  will  crash  every  time  a 
user  wants  to  answer  the  questionnaire. 
To  avoid  this,  simply  delete  the  old  star- 
tup-sequence and  replace  it  with  the  one 
listed  below. 

If  you  have  an  Amiga  500  or  2000  or  an 
Amiga  1000  with  an  internal  clock,  then 
you  may  want  Custom-BBS!  to  autoboot. 
If  you  do  not  have  an  internal  clock  and 
wish  only  to  correct  the  bug,  then  simply 
leave  out  the  lines  below  marked  <leave 
out>.  Copy  the  following  commands  from 
your  Workbench  disk,  C  directory,  to  your 
BBS  backup  disk,  C  directory:  Stack  and 
SetClock  (depending  upon  if  you  have  an 
Amiga  500  or  2000). 
echo"" 
echo  'Tour  BBS  Name" 


echo"" 

stack  15000 

SetClock  >NTL:  Opt  load  <Ieave  out> 

Date  <  leave  out> 

els 

type  texttype 

cddf0:BBS 

run  Custom-BBS! 

els 

loadwb 

Requirements 

Custom-BBS!  can  be  run  on  an  Amiga 
500, 1000  or  2000  with  a  minimum  of 
512K  and  two  disk  drives.  Custom-BBS! 
will  support  more  memory,  and  if  it's  a  re- 
coverable RAM  disk  you  can  copy  the 
whole  disk  to  RAM  (providing  that  you 
have  at  least  2MB).  You  will  also  need  to 
have  an  advanced  knowledge  of  the  CLI, 
because  you  will  constantly  be  using  it  to 
j  maintain  your  system. 

Celestial  Data  Systems  will  be  con- 
.  stantly  upgrading  Custom-BBS!  (version 
i  1.2  was  scheduled  for  release  in  June). 
And  they  will  not  charge  the  owner  for  the 
upgrade  from  1.1  to  1.2.  Simply  send  back 
the  master  disk,  and  you  will  have  your 
upgrade  sent  back  free  of  charge.  Now 
that's  service!  The  new  version  will  in- 
clude the  following  enhanced  features; 


1.  Voting  on  the  sysop's  chosen  topics. 

2.  The  ability  to  choose  what  drive 
and  path  you  want  for  your  files, 
messages,  boards  and  profiles. 

3.  Hot  Keys  for  all  menus  (so  you  can 
execute  the  command  before  you 
get  the  prompt). 

4.  A  "cleaned  up"  prompts.txt  file. 

5.  Support  of  SIGs. 

6.  WXmodem  and  possibly  more  file 
transfer  protocols. 

7.  The  ability  for  the  sysop  to  add  a 
user  without  having  the  user  call- 
ing the  system. 

8.  The  option  for  the  sysop  to  toggle 
the  Chat  option  on/off. 

9.  Sysop-defined  number  of  last  call- 
ers to  the  system  (i.e.,  10, 50, 100, 
etc.) 

10.  The  ability  for  the  caller  to  abort 
the  questionnaire  at  any  time. 

11.  Multiple  answers  to  the  questions 
defined  in  the  questionnaire. 

I  have  been  using  Custom-BBS!  since 
the  day  I  got  it,  and  to  this  day  it  has  nev- 
er crashed!  Celestial  went  out  of  their  way 
to  make  it  as  clean,  neat  and  bug  free  as 
possible.  I  use  it,  I  love  it,  and  I  think  you 
will  too.  All  other  Bulletin  Board  Systems 
should  move  over,  for  Custom-BBS!  is  the 
answer  to  every  sysop's  dream!  Q 


Amiga  Software  Reviews 'Photon  Paint ~ 

Continued  from  page  35 

Imagine  that  a  picture  you 
have  created  is  on  paper  and 
you  can  wrap  it  around  a 
geometric  shape  such  as  a 
ball  or  a  cone. 

pear  to  be  various  shadings  of  the  chosen 
color.  Text  rendered  in  the  Blend  mode 
will  also  be  affected — with  no  need  to 
place  text  and  then  fill  it.  You  can  achieve 
very  striking  graphic  effects  by  using 
large  font  si2es  with  the  Blend  mode. 

I  have  saved  the  most  unique  feature 
for  last — surface  mapping.  Imagine  that  a 
picture  you  have  created  is  on  paper  and 
you  wrap  it  around  a  geometric  shape 
such  as  a  ball  or  a  cone.  Believe  it  or  not, 
Photon  Paint  lets  you  take  a  portion  of 
your  painting  you  have  picked  up  as  a 
brush  and  do  just  that.  You  can  also  paste 
the  image  on  three  sides  of  a  cube  (which 
can  rotate  on  all  three  axes  for  the  best 
perspective),  as  well  as  wrap  it  around  an 
irregular  freehand-drawn  shape.  By  acti- 
vating the  LUM(inosity)  function,  the 


wrapped  shape  will  be  drawn  as  if  a  bright 
light  were  shining  on  it  from  a  user-de- 
fined location  (no  shadows,  though). 

Two  other  brush-related  features  should 
be  mentioned.  Again,  imagine  you  have 
an  image  on  a  piece  of  paper.  Now  twist 
the  paper  around  one,  two  or  three  times. 
Yes,  you  can  do  that  too  with  the  Twist 
function.  With  the  Perspective  function, 
you  can  take  an  image  and  rotate  it 
around  any  of  its  three  axes  and  at  the 
same  time  control  the  distance  from  your 
viewpoint.  You  can  also  shift  your  view- 
point around  the  brush!  And  all  of  this  by 
using  the  mouse.  Finally,  Photon  Paint  op- 
erates only  in  the  320  mode  (normal  and 
interlace)  with  overscan  capabilities. 
While  it  has  an  alternate  screen,  there  is 
no  "rub  through"  function  or  automatic 
ability  to  copy  one  screen  to  the  other. 

So  what's  wrong  with  Photon  Paini!  Not 
much.  The  most  annoying  aspect  is  that 
flickering  streaks  of  color  follow  custom 
brushes  around  the  screen,  and  strange 
colors  fill  the  screen  when  you  are  making 
geometric  shapes.  These  disappear,  how- 
ever, when  you  have  placed  the  image  on 
the  screen  in  its  final  location.  The  fringes 
of  unwanted  colors  between  objects  are 
more  a  function  of  the  limitations  of  the 


Amiga  HAM  mode  than  of  the  software, 
and  experimentation  with  different  colors 
will  usually  eliminate  this  problem. 

There  is  also  no  function  (such  as  Tiling 
or  Wallpapering)  to  fill  the  screen  or  a  de- 
fined area  with  a  repetitious  pattern  from 
your  brush.  Additionally,  there  is  no  "spray 
paint"  function,  and  it  appears  you  cannot 
paint  using  a  custom  brush.  Microfflusions 
will  be  addressing  these  complaints  in  an 
update.  To  fully  utilize  all  of  Photon  Paint's 
capabilities,  you  need  at  least  1MB  of 
memory,  although  the  program  (at  least 
most  parts  of  it)  will  work  with  512K. 

Photon  Paint  comes  with  a  slick  96- 
page,  spiral-bound  manual  which  is  well 
written  and  contains  several  thorough  tu- 
torials on  some  of  the  more  unique  fea- 
tures of  the  program.  There  is  also  a  sec- 
ond art/tutorial  disk,  and  Photon  Paint  is 
not  copy-protected. 

You  can  create  some  absolutely  stun- 
ning graphics  with  a  palette  of  several 
thousand  colors  using  the  Blend  mode. 
The  surface  mapping  and  twist  functions 
are  totally  unique  to  Photon  Paint  and 
must  be  seen  to  be  believed.  It  is  apparent 
that  Amiga  software  has  entered  a  new 
era  of  maturity  and  Photon  Paint  is  rooted 
firmly  in  this  new  age.  Qj 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE    41 


BOOK  REVIEWS" 


The  Electronic 
Battlefield 


Author:       Bob  Guerra 

Publisher:    Compute!  Books 

324  W.  Wendover,  Suite  200 
Greensboro,  NC  27408 

Price:  $12.95 

After  a  hard  day's  work  slaying  legions 
of  ores,  dragons  and  the  occasional 
Evil  Wizard,  what  does  a  professional  ad- 
venturer do  to  relax?  I  often  play  a  war 
game,  because  they  pose  different  kinds  of 
challenges.  But  because  the  skills  I've 
honed  in  caves  and  dungeons  don't  apply 
to  the  trenches,  I  am  regularly  beaten  by 
Battlefront,  killed  by  Kampfgruppe  and 
overrun  by  Ogre— often  in  the  same  day. 

So  I  knew  exactly  how  to  go  about  re- 
viewing this  unusual  book,  which  offers 
advice  on  30  such  games,  most  of  which 
are  available  for  the  64.  Instead  of  start- 
ing at  page  one,  I  flipped  to  the  section  on 
Ogre,  a  game  which  humiliated  me  so  se- 
verely— and  so  many  times — that  I  tossed 
it  in  the  basement  a  year  ago.  The  only 
way  I  had  ever  beaten  the  supertank  op- 
ponent was  by  using  the  field  editor  to 
equip  my  army  with  dozens  of  extra 
tanks,  infantry  units  and  howitzers.  Sure, 
it's  cheating— but  this  is  war,  I  always  told  , 
myself. 

Still,  the  feeling  of  victory  was  less  than 
fulfilling  under  such  conditions,  so  I  hoped 
author  Bob  Guerra's  counsel  would  enable 
me  to  fight  a  clean  fight  and  still  emerge 
the  victor.  After  a  brief  summary  of  each 
game's  scenario,  he  discusses  the  types  of 
weapons  and  some  general  tips  before 
launching  into  an  in-depth  look  at  various 
strategies  (your  long-range  plans)  and 
tactics  (what  you  do  when  something  goes 
wrong,  or  more  rarely — for  me,  at  least — 
right,  while  executing  the  master  plan). 
Finally,  with  screen  shots,  maps  and 
charts  to  illustrate  his  points,  he  present- 
ed a  step-by-step  account  of  a  game  he 
played,  explaining  the  significance  of  each 
move  instead  of  just  saying,  "Do  this  and 
you'l!  win." 

He  also  zeroed  in  on  the  enemy's  "think- 
ing" and  discussed  why  the  Ogre  made 
certain  moves  in  response  to  my  own.  I 
can't  say  I  won  the  first  session  following 
this  advice,  since  the  Ogre  wiped  out  my 
Command  Post  with  a  missile — but  1 
managed  to  hold  the  enemy  to  a  marginal 


While  clearly  written,  it's  not 
cut-and-dried  like  a 
textbook,  for  Guerra  employs 
analogies  and  humor  to 
illustrate  a  concept  or  point. 


victory  by  destroying  him  before  he  could 
escape.  And  in  the  next  game,  I  achieved 
a  defense  victory  by  nailing  the  Ogre  be- 
fore it  could  destroy  my  headquarters, 
something  I  had  never  been  able  to  do 
without  stacking  the  deck.  Needless  to 
say,  I  celebrated  by  giving  my  troops  a 
weekend  pass  and  promoting  myself  to 
Brigadier  General, 

Guerra  divides  the  book  into  three  sec- 
tions: "On  the  Front"  (joystick  battles  like 
Arctic  Fox],  "In  the  War  Room"  (strategic 
and  tactical  games  that  represent  the 
kind  of  program  that  usually  comes  to 
mind  when  you  say  "war  game")  and 
"Geopolitical  Decision  Making"  (board 
games  reminiscent  of  Risk  i.  The  first  two 
sections  are  further  broken  down  into 
land,  sea  and  air  games. 

The  titles  range  from  some  of  the  most 
venerable  war  games,  such  as  Tigers  in 
the  Snow,  to  many  of  the  most  recent  re- 
leases: Silent  Service  for  the  submariners 
in  the  crowd,  Europe  Ablaze  for  aerial 
aces,  and  Gettysburg:  The  Turning  Point 
for  Civil  War  diehards.  Guerra  comments 
on  the  authenticity  of  those  with  roots  in 
historical  battles.  He  also  points  out  how 
some  fictitious  scenarios  have  actually  oc- 
curred only  months  after  the  game's  re- 
lease, citing  the  1986  bombing  of  Libya,  a 
scenario  he  reminds  us  was  "originally 
written  for  a  computer  simulation— F-15 
Strike  Eagle." 

Most  war  games  provide  several  scenar- 
ios for  you  to  play,  so  there  wasn't  space  to 
give  detailed  help  on  each  one.  Instead, 
Guerra  lays  out  the  basics  of  the  game 
system,  then  zooms  in  on  one  scenario. 


Reviewed  by  Shay  Addams 


furnishing  strategic  and  tactical  tips  that 
apply  to  the  other  scenarios.  Then  he 
marches  straight  into  a  guided  tour  of  how 
to  beat  the  scenario  he's  chosen,  usually 
telling  step-by-step  what  to  do  and  why 
you  should  do  it.  (In  most  games  that  al- 
low you  to  choose  the  nation  you'll  repre- 
sent, he  reveals  the  strengths,  weaknesses 
and  best  offenses  and  defenses  for  each 
side.) 
In  the  case  of  Ogre,  for  example,  he 
i  gives  such  explicit  advice  as:  "move  the 
first  heavy  tank  on  the  left  three  hexes  to 
the  right  to  directly  below  the  missile 
tank  ...  the  Ogre  will  respond  by  moving 
up  three  hexes  and  firing  its  main  battery 
at  your  rightmost  tank."  Furthermore,  he 
explains  why  the  Ogre  won't  fire  its  mis- 
siles at  this  stage,  providing  valuable  in- 
sight into  how  the  Ogre's  artificial  intelli- 
gence decides  what  to  do. 

Instrumentation — all  those  dials  and 
gauges  and  levers  that  fill  the  screen  on 
games  like  Silent  Service  and  PHM Pega- 
sus— is  thoughtfully  addressed,  as  are  fac- 
tors such  as  terrain,  fatigue,  weather  and 
other  elements  that  might  affect  the  out- 
come of  a  particular  game.  And  the  inter- 
face of  many  programs  is  more  lucidly  ex- 
:  plained  in  this  book  than  in  the  manuals 
that  accompany  the  games. 
In  fact,  SSI  should  consider  getting 
I  Guerra  to  write  the  documentation  for 
i  their  war  games,  since  SSFs  manuals  are 
i  usually  harder  to  decipher  than  any  code 
•  used  by  real  military  forces  when  sending 
top  secret  messages. 
And  while  clearly  written,  it's  not  just 
i  cut-and-dried  like  a  textbook,  either,  for 
:  Guerra  employs  analogies  and  humor 

(and  the  occasional  migrant  worker)  to  il- 
i  lustrate  a  concept  or  point. 

In  addition  to  the  30  titles  covered  in 
detail  (most  are  available  for  the  64,  only 
-  a  few  for  the  Amiga),  an  appendix  lists 

many  more  war  games,  along  with  their 
■  manufacturers  and  addresses.  This  means 
|  you  can  also  use  the  book  as  a  sort  of  buy- 
er's guide  when  looking  for  a  new  game, 
though  a  list  of  system  availability  would 
have  made  it  more  practical. 

So  if  the  other  side  has  been  beating 
you  too  often,  volunteer  for  a  tour  of  duty 
on  The  Electronic  Battlefield—the  West 
Point  of  computer  war  games,  it  enables 
you  to  get  more  out  of  the  games  you  al- 
ready own,  as  I  did  with  Ogre.  And  the  les- 
sons learned  here  can  be  applied  to  other 
games  not  in  this  book.  a 


42    AUGUST  1988 


Ihe  new  Commodore*  Amiga"'  500  is 
everything  you  never  expected  from  a 
home  computer.  That's  because  we  designed 
it  to  excite  you.  To  dazzle  your  senses  with 
4096  colors  and  stereo  sound.  To  unleash 
your  creativity.  To  allow  things  you  never 
dreamed  possible  in  a  home  computer. 
Because  until  now,  they  really  weren't. 

Like  built-in  speech  synthesis,  so  you'll 
always  have  someone  to  talk  to.  Pro-quality 
3-D  animation  that  lets  even  beginners  put 
their  ideas  in  motion.  Colorful  educational 
programs  that  make  lessons  fun  and  mem- 
orable. A  complete  home  office  with 
powerful  spreadsheet  and  database 
programs— even  word  processing  with 
WardPerfect?  And  unlike  any  other  home 
computer,  the  Commodore  Amiga  500  can 
multi-task,  so  you  can  run  several  prograr 
at  the  same  time. 

Hook  it  to  your  VCR  with  an  optional 
RF  modulator,  and  the  Commodore  Amig 
500  becomes  a  home  video  production 
center.  Paint  graphics  over  video  images. 
Create  moving  3-D  titles.  Produce  your  own 
animated  feature. 

And  for  pure  fun,  enter  the  incredible 
world  of  stereo  Amiga  video  games.  With 
graphics  so  good,  major  video  game  makers 
use  them  in  their  coin  arcade  machines. 
AND  NOW  YOU  CAN  SEE  IT  ALL,  FREE. 

We  captured  the  excitement,  beauty, 
and  power  of  the  Commodore  Amiga  500 
on  a  special  VHS  video  cassette  called  The 
Amiga  500  Video  Test  Flight.  If  you're  ready 
for  the  ride  of  your  life,  call  1-800-343-3000 
or  contact  your  Commodore  Amiga  dealer 
to  find  out  how  you  can  get  your  free  video 
demonstration. 

1-800-343-3000 


COMMODORE 


.  calks. 
It  animates. 
It  educates. 
It's  a  home  office. 
It's  a  video  studio. 
It's  arcade  games  in  s 

Tt's  the  new  Commodore 
iga  500  home  computer. 


500 


-  r  *.  4  r  r  -• ■  ;■  r 


f        f        )«        I        fill 
ft     ft     I     IS 
I     I     ft    I     I 

c:  i   ft   i   i    i 

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Commodore  is  itegtsceiedtiademark  of  Coromcdme  Steel  romts.Ud.^  '-mig^.lnL  wokIPwIki  Is  a 

Itgtottred  tradematk  oF  die  WordPerfect  Corporation.  Marble  Madness  gjme  screen  courwsty  of  Electronic  Arts.  MailPian  business  grachlccouriKy  ofOjuti.  Inc  Motorrvtk  munition  screen  couttesy  ol  Aegis  Dev, 


ENTERTAINING  COURSEWARE" 


by  Howard  Millman 


A  Class  of  111 
Compute 

Educational  software  that 
sustains  a  child's  interest  while 
teaching  fundamental  building- 
block  concepts  can  be  hard  to 
find.  We'll  look  at  programs  that 
can  do  just  that. 


Reportedly,  nightmares  share  a  com- 
mon theme  of  being  trapped.  I  exper- 
ienced that  sensation  when  I  was  confined 
in  a  classroom  with  14  third  and  fourth 
grade  students,  each  kid  trilling,  "Mr. 
Millman,  Mr.  Millman,  this  is  boooorr- 
ring.  Can't  we  do  something  else? 
Pleeassse?"  With  the  plea  echoed  inces- 
santly, my  first  class  reverberated  like  a 
shout  in  Echo  Valley. 

Clearly,  things  had  to  improve.  I  started 
by  re-examining  the  software.  My  stu- 
dents were  right,  the  programs  were  the 
electronic  equivalent  of  an  Edsel.  Graph- 
ics were  uninspired  or  non-existent,  the 
animation  awkward  and  the  themes  mo- 
notonous. These  shortcomings  were 
crowned  by  wordy  manuals  designed  first 
to  impress,  then  inform. 

The  stuif  was  the  pits.  Continuing  to 
force  feed  these  programs  to  the  class  was 
like  shooting  myself  in  the  foot,  neither 
alternative  was  particularly  appealing. 

The  solution  lay  in  finding  stimulating 
programs  to  capture  their  interest.  But 
how?  The  school,  like  most  institutional 
buyers,  bought  software  by  mail  order. 
Such  buyers  rely  on  the  reputation  of  the 
publisher/vendor  and  the  hype  in  the 
catalog. 

A  proverb,  dating  back  to  when  wars 
were  fought  with  rocks,  dictates  that  there 
are  no  guarantees  in  life  or  in  software 
performance.  Maybe  that's  why  most  mail 
order  vendors  offer  return  privileges  to 
schools  if  the  software  doesn't  meet  their 
expectations.  Tb  tip  the  scales  in  my  favor, 
I  began  previewing  demos  or  samples  of 
software  before  committing  the  school's 
shekels. 

About  one  in  four  packages  met  my  ex- 
pectations. Being  finicky,  however,  paid 
dividends.  By  the  third  class  Fd  achieved 
my  goal.  The  students  received  the  kind  of 
challenging  creative  software  they  de- 
Served,  and  I  had  a  classroom  of  motivated 
reasonably  quiet  kids.  They  and  I  {but 


mostly  they)  survived  the  year  intact. 

Here's  one  package  that  outlasted  the 
inquest  and  another  newer  release  that 
also  meets  the  grade.  Both  are  multi-play- 
er crossword-type  games  designed  to  dis- 
pel the  despair  of  vocabulary  development 
and  spelling. 

Crypto  Cube 

Ages:  8  years-Adult 

Computer:  Commodore  64 
Publisher:    Britannica  Software 

345  Fourth  St. 

San  Francisco,  CA  94107 

(800)  572-2272 
Medium:     Disk 
Price:  $9.95 

Emphasis:  Topic-linked  spelling 

TbpicAvord  association 
Meet  Crypto  Cube's  Wuzzle,  the  elec- 
tronic equivalent  of  a  fur-covered  mean- 
dering head.  He  (she?)  is  the  on-screen 
Sergeant-at-arms  standing  guard  over  the 
cube's  dialogue  box,  shouting  directions  to 
the  players.  Just  following  the  Wuzzle's 
instructions  and  other  on-screen  prompts 
is  direction  enough  for  kids  to  play  this  in- 
formative game. 

Each  of  the  cube's  four  sides  displays  a 
grid  much  like  a  crossword's.  Typically, 
there  are  four  words  per  side  so  each 
round  consists  of  twenty  words.  The  words 
in  each  round  link  to  a  common  theme. 


Students  choose  from  a  list  of  fifty  theme 
centers,  including  the  names  of  everyday 
items  like  animals,  kinds  of  transporta- 
tion, weather  terms,  food,  clothing,  colors 
and  others. 

No  clues  are  offered  to  the  words  other 
than  the  theme  heading.  Like  the  board 
game  Battleship,  the  initial  moves  are 
spent  just  gaining  some  idea  of  the  words' 
whereabouts.  For  hopelessly  mired  play- 
ers or  students  who  need  an  advantage, 
an  opening  menu  option  summons  a  list  of 
the  20  words  comprising  the  round. 

In  a  typical  two-player  game  each  stu- 
dent moves  the  cursor,  via  the  keyboard, 
into  one  of  the  cube's  squares  seeking  a 
contact.  If  the  square  is  empty  it's  a  miss 
and  the  square  is  blanked. 

Hits  are  handled  two  ways.  If  the  hid- 
den letter  is  a  vowel,  the  letter  is  immedi- 
ately revealed.  If  a  consonant,  a  question 
mark  is  displayed.  Now  the  player  must 
guess  what  the  hidden  letter  is.  The  Wuz- 
zle dances  to  the  music  when  a  correct 
guess  is  made. 

As  you  can  see,  there's  a  direct  relation- 
ship between  the  number  of  letters/words 
already  discovered  and  the  probability  of 
correctly  guessing  which  consonant  the 
question  mark  represents.  And  it's  also 
why  students  with  superior  association 
skills  will  likely  excel  at  this  game. 

After  identifying  all  the  words  on  one 
face,  the  cube  is  rotated  to  another.  The 
round  is  complete  when  all  four  sides  are 
filled  in. 

Recognizing  that  even  with  fifty  theme 
centers  this  bargain-priced  game  would 
have  a  rather  limited  life  span,  Britannica 
wisely  builds  in  two  longevity  factors.  The 
first  is  the  ability  to  instruct  the  computer 
to  generate  a  new  puzzle  format  using  the 
same  words.  Shifting  the  words  around 
slightly  extends  the  game's  lifeline.  The 
second  option  offers  Crypto  Cube  the  gift 
of  immortality.  Via  a  list  management 
system  the  student,  teacher  or  parent  can 
create  a  puzzle  using  their  own  words. 
Keying  in  words  related  to  the  curriculum 
or  a  child's  interests  adds  relevance. 

Students  are  always  asking,  "Why  do  I 
need  to  know/learn/understand  this?" 
Well,  in  this  case  if  the  words  conform  to  a 
kid's  interests  the  answer  is  they  can  de- 
scribe their  pastimes  in  writing  as  well  as 
verbally. 

I  also  looked  at  another  of  Britannica's 
highly  regarded  products,  SpellCopter.  To 
a  similar  degree,  both  share  common  at- 


44    AUGUST  1988 


Entertaining  Courseware /A  Class  of  III  Compute  - 


tributes.  Unfortunately,  they  also  share 
the  same  shortcoming,  slow  disk  load 
times.  Trimming  the  load  time  would  en- 
courage greater  use  of  both  in  a  home 
learning  or  school  environment. 

In  a  recent  conversation  with  Ibm  Pa- 
derna,  Britannica's  product  manager,  I 
asked  about  their  plans  for  revisions  and 
forthcoming  releases,  Ibm,  holding  his 
cards  close  to  his  vest,  simply  said  they 
"are  not  ignoring  the  Commodore  mar- 
ket" (strongly  emphasizing  the  "not").  He 
continued  by  saying  Britannica's  reps  had 
just  returned  from  a  meeting  with  Com- 
modore to  discuss  improving  the  quantity 
and  quality  of  64/128  educational  soft- 
ware. That's  the  kind  of  continuing  com- 
mitment we  hope  to  see  more  of. 

Scrabble  Crossword  Game 
Computer:  Commodore  64 
Ages:  8  years-Adult 

Distributor:  Electronic  Arts 

1820  Gateway  Drive 

San  Mateo,  CA  94404 

(415)  571-7171 
Medium:     Disk 
Price:         $32.95 
Emphasis:   Spelling,  Vocabulary  and 

Strategy 

This  is  the  classic  Scrabble,  true  to  the 
original  board  game's  ruies  and  capturing 
all  its  time-honored  appeal. 

Combining  Scrabble  with  the  comput- 
er's silicon  soul  eliminates  two  of  the 
board  game's  limitations.  First,  the  disk's 
built-in  20,000  -  word  dictionary  resolves 
players'  squabbles  over  just  what  is  or 
isn't  an  acceptable  word.  Second,  since  one 
player  can  compete  against  the  computer, 
solitaire  Scrabble  is  now  a  reality. 

The  computer  is  quite  a  capable  adver- 
sary too,  fortunately  it  can  be  handi- 
capped when  challenged  by  a  mere  hu- 
man. 

The  transition  from  board  to  screen  was 
implemented  with  foresight  and  skill. 
Players  are  assigned  racks  each  contain- 
ing seven  letter  tiles.  Racks  can  be  dis- 
played or  hidden  at  the  players'  option.  As 
in  the  board  game,  letters  can  be  ex- 
changed or  juggled,  and  players  can  fore- 
go their  turn. 

The  game  is  well  crafted  throughout.  It 
loads  quickly  and  offers  on-screen  prompts 
as  well  as  sound  effects  to  accompany  cur- 
sor movements.  The  single  static  graphic 
displays  the  Scrabble  board  complete  with 
premium  squares. 

Choosing  from  the  letter  tiles  on  the 
rack,  players  key  in  a  word.  If  the  word  in- 


corporates letters  which  are  not  on  the 
player's  rack,  it's  a  reject.  If  accepted,  the 
player,  via  the  keyboard,  moves  the  cursor 
to  the  word's  starting  square  on  the  game 
board.  Entering  a  "D"  for  down  or  "A"  for 
across  directs  the  program  to  type  in  the 
word  vertically  or  horizontally.  An  "X" 
cancels  the  word. 

Providing  the  word  conforms  to  the 
game's  rules,  the  program  totals  the 
word's  score.  The  player  is  offered  the 
chance  to  cancel  the  move  if  the  score  is 
unacceptably  low.  Once  accepted,  the  word 
becomes  permanent. 

Games  in  progress  can  be  saved  on  a 
work  disk.  Games  so  saved  can  be  readily 
resurrected  another  day. 

Since  the  program  is  imported  from  Eu- 
rope, I  tested  all  features  to  satisfy  myself 
that  it  performs  as  promised.  It  does. 

Electronic  Arts,  the  largest  home  and 
entertainment  software  vendor,  distrib- 
utes Scrabble  for  the  British  firm  Leisure 
Genius.  According  to  Bill  Mowry,  EA's 
product  manager,  Scrabble  is  Leisure  Ge- 
nius' first  release  for  the  Commodore  64. 
This  past  June  they  also  announced  the 
release  of  Monopoly  for  the  64,  to  be  fol- 
lowed by  other  popular  board  games  as 
they  receive  the  licenses  to  transpose 
them  to  disk. 

Bridging  the  Years 

Ordinarily,  1  tend  toward  the  conserva- 
tive when  defining  a  program's  targeted 
age  group.  For  me,  eight  through  adult  is 
quite  a  spread.  With  Scrabble  and  Crypto 
Cube  there's  a  good  reason  for  the  range, 
as  they  both  extend  help  to  the  junior 
player. 

Just  as  Crypto  Cube  volunteers  help  by 
allowing  a  player  to  peek  at  the  words, 
Scrabble  also  provides  a  suggested  word 
when  asked.  Furthermore,  Scrabble's  com- 
puter can  be  handicapped  by  directing  it 
to  compete  at  a  lower  skill  level  than  its 
human  counterpart. 

For  either  of  these  games  to  be  easier  to 
learn  they  would  need  training  wheels; 
both  can  be  played  by  following  the  on- 
screen prompts.  Which,  come  to  think  of 
it,  is  just  the  way  we  like  it.  Student's  ef- 
forts are  directed  toward  playing  the 
game,  not  understanding  the  rules. 

In  other  words,  software,  like  manuals 
I  that  are  designed  to  first  inform,  then  im- 
press. 

If  you  have  any  suggestions,  questions  or 
comments  about  this  column,  the  sofhvare 
covered  or  future  topics,  please  write  to 
Howard  Miilman  in  care  o/Commodore 
,  Magazine.  Q 


Amiga  Software  Reviews/ Publisher  Plus— 

Continued  from  page  34 

serJet.  As  you  invoke  the  printing  option 
from  the  pull-down  menu  you'll  be  offered 
a  sub-choice  of  dot  matrix  and  Postscript 
as  well  as  Postscript  Disk.  Selecting  Post- 
script converts  the  file  into  a  language 
1  which  can  be  read  by  your  Postscript-driv- 
en printer,  while  the  Disk  option  "prints" 
a  Postscript  file  to  disk  for  later  use. 

In  the  matter  of  printers  and  fonts,  you 
may  want  to  experiment  to  see  which 
combination  works  best  for  you.  During 
my  evaluation,  I  used  the  Okimate  20 
printer  and  found  that  some  fonts  looked 
almost  typeset  while  others  on  the  same 
page  looked  like  dot-matrix.  In  printing 
on  a  Panasonic,  the  situation  was  some- 
times reversed.  The  bottom  line  is  this: 
some  fonts  will  be  handled  well  by  your 
printer  and  others  won't  be. 

One  shortcoming  of  Publisher  Plus  is 
the  documentation.  Though  nicely  printed 
and  supplied  in  a  slipcased  loose-leaf  bind- 
er (which  will  lie  open  on  your  desk),  there 
just  isn't  enough  of  it.  There  is  a  very  good 
glossary  of  printing  terms,  an  index,  a 
guide  to  printer's  editing  marks  and  an 
appendix  showing  the  many  different  bor- 
ders available  from  your  keyboard. 

But  I  would  have  appreciated  more  in- 
depth  explanation  on  using  the  program. 
Further,  although  there  is  an  appendix 
showing  the  resident  fonts,  it  is  incom- 
plete. All  fonts  are  shown  in  nine-point 
and  one  is  shown  in  32-point.  All  sizes  in 
between  should  have  been  included  to  aid 
those  of  us  who  have  no  idea  how  big  24- 
pointis. 

Another  complaint  is  that  not  all  font 
sizes  available  are  shown  when  the  font 
directory  is  invoked.  You'll  find  no  32- 
point  Times,  for  example,  but  Publisher 
Plus  is  capable  of  creating  it  by  rescaling 
the  indicated  sizes.  Yet,  unless  you've  read 
absolutely  every  word  of  the  manual,  you 
might  never  know  this. 

For  productivity  programs,  documenta- 
tion should  be  redundant:  the  same  infor- 
mation should  be  stated  several  times  in 
different  ways;  and  the  more  complex  the 
program,  the  more  redundant  the  manual 
should  be.  Publisher  falls  short  in  this 
area,  so  some  users  may  miss  important 
steps  and  tips. 

In  spite  of  these  drawbacks,  Publisher 
Plus  is  a  full-featured  desktop  publishing 
program.  The  layout,  formatting  and 
graphics  features  meet  most  criteria  for 
true  desktop  publishing,  and  the  program 
is  easier  to  use  than  some  others  I've  tried. 
Sparse  documentation  notwithstanding, 
this  one  does  work  and  works  well.        DJ 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE    45 


ADVENTURE  ROAD' 


Infocom  Goes 
Graphic,  EA 
Gets  Wasted 

News  and  opinion  from  a  leading 
explorer  of  those  fantasy  realms 
called  adventure  games. 

In  a  startling  turnabout,  Infocom— 
whose  name  practically  means  text  ad- 
venture to  adventurers  around  the 
world — has  gone  graphic.  They  plan  to  in- 
corporate graphics  in  all  future  interac- 
tive fiction  titles,  and  Sherlock  will  most 
likely  be  their  last  ail-text  adventure. 

"Our  market  just  hasn't  been  growing 
the  way  it  was  in  the  old  days,"  Infocom 
President  Joel  Berez  told  me.  "We  still 
have  a  very  solid  core  of  loyal  interactive 
fiction  fans,  but  we're  not  picking  up  new 
people  at  the  rate  we  used  to.  And  we're 
even  losing  some  of  the  old  people,  who 
are  perhaps  growing  tired  of  products  that 
are  in  many  ways  very  similar." 

Amiga  owners  in  particular  haven't 
been  attracted  to  all-text  games,  probably 
because  many  people  buy  the  machine 
primarily  for  its  graphic  capabilities.  Info- 
com added  sound  effects  to  Lurking  Hor- 
ror, of  course.  But  the  company  an- 
nounced only  months  later  that  they 
wouldn't  be  converting  all  their  releases 
for  the  Amiga,  so  apparently  that  move 
didn't  make  much  difference. 

Berez  gave  two  other  reasons  for  adding 
graphics:  'The  early  machines  weren't  ca- 
pable of  producing  anything  but  the  most 
cartoonish  forms  of  graphics,  and  the 
memory  and  disk  limitations  required  a 
tradeoff— if  you  added  graphics,  you  had 
to  take  out  something  else.  With  today's 
more  powerful  machines  and  our  new  pro- 
gramming techniques,  we  feel  we  can  add 
to  the  games  without  taking  anything 
away.  And  oddly  enough,  in  the  process  of 
making  the  technical  changes  required  to 
support  graphics,  we  may  also  be  relaxing 
some  former  restrictions,  such  as  game 
size.  So  the  basic  text  and  logic  parts  of 
the  games  will  likely  get  bigger,  even  as 
we  add  other  features." 

For  Amiga  adventurers,  this  will  cer- 
tainly be  a  boon.  But  64  owners  won't  be 
happy  to  learn  that  the  64  probably  won't 
be  supported  at  all.  The  possibility  exists 
for  later  games  that  might  run  on  the  64, 
though  for  now  Infocom  is  focusing  its  ef- 


by  Shay  Addams 


forts  on  a  128-only  version  of  their  new 
adventures.  (Even  that  is  uncertain  at 
this  stage.)  Infocomics  will  be  the  only  64 
titles  available,  and  these  aren't  adven- 
tures—in fact,  they're  not  even  games.  No 
puzzles,  no  points,  just  a  story  that  you 
can  fast-forward  and  rewind  through,  a 
program  whose  only  original  features  al- 
low you  to  switch  between  the  perspective 
of  various  characters.  Infocom  says  Infoco- 
mics weren't  created  for  adventure  fans, 
anyway,  but  to  attract  a  new  market — the 
comic  book  crowd.  That's  why  they're  be- 
ing sold  in  comic  book  stores  and  market- 
ed through  other  new  channels. 

In  another  major  departure  for  Infocom, 
Brian  Moriarty  {Trinity,  Beyond  Zork)  is 
working  on  a  traditional  role-playing 
game  along  the  lines  of  a  Bard's  Tale  or 
Wizardry.  And  before  that's  released,  Info- 
com will  market  a  similar  game  produced 
by  an  outside  developer  (though  Infocom 
people  are  involved  with  the  project). 
Berez  says  this  is  part  of  their  strategy  to 
become  Activision's  "interactive  storytell- 
ing division."  (Activision  bought  the  com- 
pany in  1986.)  Part  of  that  strategy  in- 
cludes the  move  into  RPGs. 

When  things  were  slowing  down  in  the 
text  adventure  realm,  Berez  recalls,  "We 
tried  to  figure  what  really  made  sense  for 
us  to  be  doing.  We  decided  our  greatest  ex- 
pertise was  in  interactive  storytelling  and 
that  we  wanted  to  branch  out  in  this  area, 
Just  as  we  dominated  interactive  fiction, 
we'd  like  to  dominate  interactive  storytell- 
ing, simply  specializing  in  all  aspects  of 
that.  As  we've  pursued  that  strategy,  we 
eventually  convinced  Activision  that  it 
made  so  much  sense  for  us  to  be  the  spe- 


SUSAN  LIPPMAN 


cialists  in  those  sorts  of  products  that  Ac- 
tivision has  stopped  doing  them." 

If  Infocom  doesn't  produce  text  adven- 
tures, will  anyone  else?  Companies  that 
tried  to  compete  with  them — notably  Bro- 
derbund  and  Mindscape — have  already 
given  up.  And  most  software  developers 
will  probably  reason  that  if  Infocom  is  get- 
ting out  of  text  games,  the  market  is  too 
weak  for  them  to  move  into.  But  some  dar- 
ing souls  might  view  this  as  an  opportuni- 
ty to  snare  an  existing  audience  and  take 
a  chance  on  some  new  all-text  games.  In- 
focom still  has  the  technology  to  do  all- 
text  games,  so  the  door  is  not  quite  closed 
on  this  genre, 

Wasteland:  Role  Playing  Reaches 
New  Heights 

Electronic  Arts  gave  up  on  text  games 
after  their  first  bid,  Amnesia,  and  since 
then  their  Interactive  Stories  Division  has 
concentrated  solely  on  role-playing 
games.  The  best  one  I've  seen  from  them 
or  anyone  else  this  year  is  Wasteland,  cre- 
ated by  Interplay  Productions.  It's  a  post- 
nuclear  war  scenario  that  puts  you  in 
charge  of  seven  Desert  Rangers  out  to 
solve  a  series  of  mini-missions  in  the 
American  Southwest.  While  doing  so,  you 
stumble  across  the  game's  main  goal, 
which  involves  the  Servants  of  the  Mush- 
room Cloud,  a  "glow  in  the  dark"  cult 
whose  temple  is  a  former  nuclear  reactor 
in  Las  Vegas. 

Characters  aren't  restricted  by  specific 
classes  such  as  Thief  or  Fighter.  At  the 
outset,  each  of  your  four  main  characters 
gets  a  number  of  skill  points  equal  to  his 
Continued  tin  page  81 


46     AUGUST  1988 


CHECK  US  OUT!       LET  US  EARN  YOUR  BUSINESS! ! 

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Bankstreet  Writer 
9EST  Business  Series  64 
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CMS  Inventory  123 
Cfiartpaki28  0R64 
Data  manager  128 
Data  manager  2 
Fleet  f.Iet  61/12E 
Fleet  System  2  + 
Fleet  System  4 
FontBister  IZBw/Speii 
Fontmaster  II 
KFS  Accountant  128 
Add-ons  -  call  us 
Math  Function  Evaluator 
Mlaolawyer  64 

ppm  i?8 

FTHH 

Page  Builder  128 

Paperclip  Publisher  64 

Paperclip  3 

Panne;  12a 

Partner  64 

Pocket  Dictionary 

Poceel  Superpak  2 

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Securities  Anafyrfl  128 

Suparbase128 

Superbase  64 

Suparbasa  128/1581  drive 

Swlttcilc  1 28  w/Sideways 

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T  AS  128 

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\Tizhttar12B 

Vulwfite  Classic  12s 

Wordwrtt«12S 

Wordwrittr  3 


133 
EA  46 
10 
129 
S3 
EA  29 
39 
17 
29 
19 
» 
19 
15 
119 
52 
27 
42 
12 
29 
39 
39 
39 
39 
30 
10 
67 
EA  39 
36 

n 

44 

"call 
39 
17 
42 
29 
EA  39 
60 
60 
39 
30 


Easy  Sign/5  + 

Grandma's  House/5-9 

OH  on  Keys/5-8 

Linkwoid  Foreign  Languages 

Lulls  Computer  People 

Peter  Rabbit  (Reading  1 1  /  5-3 

Reader  Rabbit/4-7 

Rocky 's  Bools/9  + 

StKkybear  Math  1/5-8 

Stickybear  Roadlng/5-B 

Stlckybear  Typlng/5-B 

Jungle  Book  (Reading  2|  /  6-9 

KldwrHer/6-9 

Mathbus!ers/6-9 

Stlckybear  Math  2/6-9 

Stickybear  Spellgrabber/6-9 

Sltckybear  Townbulldar/6-9 

Rrsl  Men  on  Moon  Math/9  + 

Stickybear  Read  Comprah./9  + 

Evelyn  Wood  Dynamic  Read/11 

Pro  Tutor  Account  ng/14  + 

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MMhjmCla*3/10  + 
Alice  In  Wonderland,  Swiss 
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Root.  Treasure  Island  OR 
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18 
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SI 
19 
29 
29 
22 
22 
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19 
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9 
22 
22 
2? 
19 
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+  17 
59 
21 

EA     21 

36 

35 


Becker  Bask  S35 

Fontpac  Plus  64/128  35 

GEOS 128  45 

GE0S64  39 

GEOS  Companion  Number  One  24 

GeoFiks  64  35 

GeoProgrammer  45 

BtoPuMtti  64  45 

GeoSpel  19 

Geocalc  1 28  45 

GeocalcB4  35 

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Neolont  19 

Word  Publisher  [GEOS)  28 


GRAPHICS/CAD 


EDUCATIONAL 


Body  Transparent 
Early  Learning  Friends/PRE 
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Alphabet  Zr»/5-8 


PERSONAL 


Bodylog  Cardki  Eiercise 

Sodylog  Enhanced  Stress 

Bodytoc  Kearttab 

Bodylog  Muscle  Development 

Bodying  standard  Stress 

Boston  Bartender's  Guide 

Brldgemaster 

Build  a  Book  About  You 

CDA  Cooking  Titles 

Crossword 

Dr.  Ruth's  Sei 

Dream  Machine 

Family  Tree  1 28  OR  64 

Pant  Whitehead  Chess 

RSVP 

Seiual  Edge 

Tempo  Typing 


75 

229 

a 

H 

89 
12 
12 
19 

can 
12 
22 

19 
EA     39 


30  Perspective  2 

39 

Advanced  OCP  Art  Studio 

25 

Animation  Station 

65 

BASIC  3 

25 

Billboard  Maker 

29 

Blazing  Paddles 

25 

Bumper  Slicker  Maker 

35 

Business  Card  Maker 

35 

CAD  30 

39 

Cadpakl28 

42 

Cadpak  64 

29 

Certfllcate  Maker 

17 

Colorez12B 

12 

MM 

29 

Fie*  id  raw  5.5 

29 

Geopubtsr)  54 

45 

Graphic  Art  Disks  1  Hull  10 

EA     13 

Graphic  Label  Wizard 

21 

Graphics  Balls  Ma  Pak  1  OR  2 

EA     24 

Graphics  Integrator  2 

24 

Graphics  Transformer 

25 

Home  Designer  128 

45 

CON  Factory 

25 

Moving  Pictures 

20 

Newsroom 

17 

PCS  Circuit  Board  Maker 

79 

Page  Illustrator  128 

29 

Paperclip  Publisher  64 

39 

Photo  Finish 

19 

PtinIM  jsIc r  Pius 

25 

Prlntshop 

35 

Screen  F/X 

25 

SUdeshow  Creator 

13 

The  Toy  Shop 

22 

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25 

1541/1571  Drive  Alignment 

BASICS 

BASIC  Compiler  128 

BASIC  Compiler  64 

Big  Blue  Reader  64/128 

Bobsterm  Pro  1 28 

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CPM  Kit  128 

COBOL  128  OR  COBOL  64 

Final  Cartridge  3 

Gnome  Kit  64/12B 

Mich  126 

Merlin  128 

Merlin  64 

Ptiyslcal  Exam  1541  OR  1571 

Power  Assembler  64/128 

Power  C  64/128 

Prole  Line  BBS  128 

RAM  DOS  178 

Renegade 

Super  81  Utilities  128  or  64 

Super  Aide 

Super  C  128  OR  64 

Super  Chips  64 

Super  Chips  128  or  12BD 

Super  Disk  Utilities 

Super  Librarian  128 

Super  Pascal  128  OR  64 

Synlech  BBS  Construction  Set 

Syntech  BBS  Games  Module 

Sysres  Enhanced 

Warp  Speed  128 


J25 
30 
42 
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32 
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35 
22 

EA  29 
49 
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45 
35 
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45 
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25 
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19 

EA     45 


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MO 

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s 


PROJECTS 


by  John  lovine 


Monitor 
Projects 

for  the  Commodore  128 

RGB  to  Composite  Monitor 

Here  are  a  few  short  and  simple  moni- 
tor projects.  For  those  of  you  who  would 
like  to  use  an  inexpensive  composite 
monochrome  monitor  and  have  the  80  col- 
umns inherent  with  the  RGB,  we'll  con- 
struct an  adaptor.  The  adaptor  uses  two 
lines  off  the  RGB  socket  and  feeds  directly 
into  your  composite  monitor  to  give  you 
an  80-column  screen,  (See  figure  1.) 

The  adaptor  is  a  stand-alone  project, 
but  if  you  wish  you  can  add  a  simple 
switch  that  will  allow  you  to  manually 
switch  from  the  RGB  to  composite  (graph- 
ics screens)  whenever  you  like.  You  have 
to  use  the  video  out  rather  than  the  RF 
out.  (See  figure  2.)  I  have  not  found  any 
standard  plug  that  fits  into  this  socket,  so 
if  you  wish  to  use  this  circuit  simply  insert 
wires  into  the  appropriate  socket  holes 
and  tape  into  place. 


9    PIN 

'D'    CONNECTOR 


4     3 

o   o   o   o-1  o 

O     O     O-i  o 
9      8      7 


MONOCHROME 


Figure  1 

80  Column  RGB  to  Composite 


80  Column  to  TV 

Here's  another  circuit  you  might  want 
to  entertain  using.  (See  figure  3.)  This  cir- 
cuit uses  the  RGB  adaptor  to  an  RF  Mod- 
ulator (Radio  Shack  PN#15-1273)  to  a 
standard  TV  set  The  resolution  isn't  per- 
fect, but  it  is  quite  usable  when  you 
sharpen  it  up  with  the  following  pro- 
gram lines: 

10  REM  USE  THIS  PROG  FOR  80 

COL  TO  TV 
20  POKE  DEC("DC00") ,26 

:POKE  DEC ("D601") ,2 
30  POKE  DEC("D600") ,25 

:POKE  DEC ("D601") ,0 

I  tested  this  circuit  with  a  color  TV;  it's 


VIDEO 
CONNECTOR 


possible  that  a  black  and  white  TV  may 
work  better.  Again  you  may  have  to  ad- 
just the  TV  to  obtain  the  best  picture 
possible. 

Circuit  Construction 

The  circuit  (figure  1)  is  practically  self 
explanatory.  Solder  short  leads  from  the 
9-pin  plug  to  the  phono  socket.  Use  a  vid- 
eo/audio cable  from  the  phono  socket  to 
your  monitor.  You  may  have  to  adjust  the 
intensity  of  your  monitor,  but  you  should 
find  the  setup  quite  satisfactory. 

You  can  cover  the  adaptor  wires  with 
heat  shrink  tubing  or  a  molded  plastic 
cover,  both  of  which  are  available  at 
Radio  Shack, 

Note 

1  have  received  many  letters  requesting 
more  info  on  the  sound  sampling  circuit 
This  is  to  inform  everyone  that  Fm  de- 
signing a  new  and  improved  circuit  that 
will  be  coming  out  shortly.  Watch  for  this 
and  other  Projects  in  upcoming  issues  of 
Commodore  Magazine.  H 


PHONO 
PLUG 


PHONO  PLUG 
TO  COMPOSITE  MONITOR 
Figure  2 
Switchable  80  Column  and  Composite  to  Composite 


C-128   RGB 


5      4     3      2      1 
O     O     O     O-I  O 

o    o    CH  o 

8    7    !  6 


Figure  3 

80  Column  to  TV 


RF  MODULATOR 

(REAR   VIEW) 


MATCH1NC 
TRANSFORMER 


i 

s 


48    AUGUST  1988 


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SygB 

fiSHH 

■-"■■  '•  ■'    H   '  ■    I    ■■       ;    '■'■'  '-•-' 


Magic's 

^^Stw     bv  Russ  Ceccol 


by  Russ  Ceccola 


Majesty 

in  Adventure  Games 


Magic  has  always  been  an 
element  of  humanity.  Man  has 
always  found  a  fascination  in 
those  things  deemed  beyond  the 
capabilities  of  normal  behavior 
and  the  laws  of  nature.  Magic  on 
computers  is  found  in  the  realm  of 
adventure  games.  From 
Adventure  to  Zork,  all  have  at 
leasl  a  tiny  bit  of  magic  that  the 
player  can  perform.  An 
understanding  of  the  magical 
abilities  of  your  character  and 
surroundings  is  necessary  in 
order  to  do  well  in  adventure 
games.  Here  then  is  my 
compendium  of  the  magical  lure 
contained  in  adventure  games. 

For  prehistoric  man,  fire  was  magical 
because  of  the  things  it  could  do  and 
the  power  it  seemed  to  possess.  For  us  to- 
day, it  takes  more  than  fire  to  make  us  be- 
lieve in  magic  as  a  real  force  in  the  world. 
Magicians  and  illusionists  of  our  times 
bring  us  to  the  brink  of  believing  in  mag- 
ic; only  the  knowledge  that  their  tricks 
are  merely  clever  prestidigitation  keeps 
us  from  falling  over  the  edge. 

Magic  permeates  all  areas  of  our  lives 
not  just  our  thoughts.  Because  of  its  de- 
pendence on  what  cannot  really  happen, 
magic  appears  throughout  the  entertain- 
ment industry,  from  movies  to  books.  Its 
effects  can  be  seen  in  all  their  glory  espe- 


cially in  computer  games  of  all  types.  The 
computer,  its  graphics,  sound  and  memory 
are  the  likely  location  to  present  magic  to 
an  audience  that  is  able  to  suspend  doubt 
for  the  duration  of  the  game. 

Magic  on  computers  is  predominantly 
found  in  the  realm  of  adventure  games. 
From  Adventure  to  Zork,  all  have  at  least 
a  tiny  bit  of  magic  that  the  player  can  per- 
form. By  playing  these  games,  we  develop 
a  strong  degree  of  creativity  through  at- 
tempting to  discover  uses  for  the  magical 
abilities  given  to  us  in  the  game.  A  thor- 
ough understanding  of  these  abilities  is 
necessary  in  order  to  do  well  in  adventure 
games.  I  searched  carefully  for  the  pres- 
ence of  magic  in  the  games  that  I  owned 
and  found  six  ways  in  which  magic  is  used 
in  adventure  games:  spells,  potions/ 
powders,  wands/staffs,  worn  magical 
items,  magical  words  and  miscellaneous 
appearances  of  magic. 

Spells 

There  are  many  ways  in  which  spells 
can  be  cast  in  adventure  games.  Their  use 
extends  from  role-playing  games  through 
text  adventures  and  depends  largely  upon 
the  creativity  of  the  person  playing  the 
game.  A  spell  is  usually  written  on  a  scroll 
or  discovered  in  some  other  form  of  writ- 
ing. A  major  part  of  using  spells  is  discov- 
ering what  they  do — what  their  effect  is 
on  all  things — both  living  and  nonliving. 
In  any  case,  there  are  two  ways  in  which 
spells  may  be  used:  they  may  be  cast  on 
yourself  or  cast  on  other  characters  or 
things. 

Before  worrying  about,  how  to  use  spells, 
you  first  have  to  know  where  they  come 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE     51 


from.  In  most  role-playing  games,  spells 
are  acquired  with  experience  or  the  at- 
tainment of  a  character  level.  There  are 
usually  two  types  of  spells:  those  of  sorcer- 
ers or  magicians  and  those  priestly  or 
clerical  spells.  The  spells  are  different  for 
both  classes  of  spellcaster,  but  their  meth- 
od of  accumulation  is  the  same.  As  the 
characters  "serve  time"  in  the  realm  of 
the  game,  their  magical  ability,  particu- 
larly the  availability  of  spells,  increases. 
So  in  role-playing  games,  more  spells  are 
acquired  as  a  result  of  success  in  the  rest 
of  the  adventure. 

In  other  adventure  games,  spells  are 
usually  found.  The  spells  may  be  written 
within  books  or  other  publications,  writ- 
ten on  scrolls  or  parchment  or  inscribed  on 
other  objects,  lb  find  out  about  the  spell, 
the  adventurer  reads  the  description  of 
the  spell  or  discovers  through  close  exami- 

A  spell  is  usually  written  on  a 

scroll  or  discovered  in  some 

other  form  of  writing. 

nation  that  a  spell  is  contained  in  some 
object.  Once  the  existence  of  the  spell  is 
confirmed,  there  are  many  directions  in 
which  the  game  can  proceed,  depending 
on  the  way  the  spell  is  used  in  the  game 
and  the  proper  use  of  the  spell  according 
to  the  game's  author. 

Casting  the  spell  on  yourself  gives  a 
good  indication  of  what  it  can  do.  In  most 
cases,  you  will  probably  have  to  return  to 
a  previously  saved  position  in  the  game 
after  using  the  spell  because  you  have 
probably  lowered  the  number  of  "lives" 
left  in  the  spell  and  the  change  it  brings 
about  in  your  alter  ego  in  the  game  may 
be  irreversible.  Yet  the  spell's  effect  on 
yourself  is  a  clear  indicator  of  its  place  in  a 
game.  This  action  will  tell  you  whether 
the  spell  is  meant  to  be  used  on  yourself  or 
another  character  or  object  in  the  game. 

Trying  to  successfully  cast  your  newly- 
found  spell  on  other  characters,  animals 
or  inanimate  objects  in  an  adventure 
sheds  even  more  light  upon  the  correct 
use  of  a  spell  and  at  the  very  least  allows 
for  some  interesting  results.  Through  ex- 
perimentation, you  may  find  fun  in  what 
is  otherwise  a  boring  adventure  game. 
Also,  you  may  stumble  upon  the  answer 
to  a  puzzle  that  has  plagued  you  for  a 
while  by  trying  out  a  new  spell.  In  most 


cases,  the  effect  of  the  spell  on  other  char- 
acters will  be  the  same  as  on  you,  In  the 
case  of  inanimate  objects  or  animals/crea- 
tures, anything  can  happen— just  experi- 
ment and  see. 

Casting  or  executing  a  spell  may  take 
place  in  any  number  of  ways,  from  simply 
picking  it  up  to  throwing  it.  However,  the 
predominant  ways  of  casting  spells  are 
through  reading  them  or  invoking  their 
name.  Reading  the  spell  from  the  place  it 
is  written  takes  immediate  effect.  The 
spell  can  automatically  take  effect  on  the 
object  or  character  in  your  location  in  the 
game  for  which  it  was  intended.  Other- 
wise, reading  the  spell  may  cause  an 
event  to  take  place.  like  the  arrival  of 
night  or  the  appearance  of  a  force  field 
around  the  character  or  party.  Whether 
individual  or  group  effects  take  place, 
reading  the  spell  may  make  the  object  on 
which  the  spell  is  written  disappear,  so  be 
sure  you  need  a  spell  before  you  use  it. 

The  other  means  of  casting  a  spell  is 
through  invocation  of  its  name.  By  simply 
saying  the  name  of  the  spell,  with  or  with- 
out other  words  that  indicate  for  whom  or 
what  the  spell  is  intended,  its  power  is 
manifested.  Again,  you  have  to  be  sure 
that  you  want  to  use  the  spell  before  in- 
voking it,  for  there  may  be  a  limit  to  the 
number  of  times  that  you  can  use  it.  If  you 
know  this  limit,  it  helps  matters  a  lot.  If 
not,  logical  reasoning  instead  of  haphaz- 
ard guessing  will  help  you  to  use  the  spell 
correctly. 

As  an  example  of  the  use  of  spells  in  ad- 
venture games,  I  can  use  Enchanter,  one 
of  the  spell-based  and  heavily  spell-popu- 
lated Enchanter  Trilogy  games.  There  is  a 
spell  called  Vaxum,  the  purpose  of  which 
is  to  make  a  hostile  creature  your  friend. 
There  is  an  adventurer  who  is  angry  with 
you  in  the  mirrored  halls  of  a  castle  in  the 
game.  After  learning  the  spell,  you  may 
type  in  VAXUM  BEING  to  change  the  at- 
titude of  the  adventurer,  thus  increasing 
your  score. 

Potions  and  Powders 

Potions,  magical  liquids,  powders  and 
magical  substances  are  popular  ways  of 
containing  a  one-shot  magical  effect  in  a 
physical  form.  In  most  cases,  the  potion 
may  be  used  or  drunk  only  once,  and  the 
powder  may  be  blown,  poured  or  thrown 
only  once.  Both  categories  are  favorites  of 
magician-like  characters  in  games.  In  de- 


scribing them,  games  often  refer  to  the 
wizard  or  magical  character  that  created 
the  potion  or  powder.  The  key  to  successful 
usage  of  a  potion  or  powder  is  to  know 
when  to  use  it.  Once  this  is  found  out,  your 
inventory  will  be  lightened  when  the  sub- 
stance is  used. 

Potions  and  liquids  are  tricky  to  deal 
with,  because  their  effect  may  not  be  re- 
movable. In  particular,  after  drinking  a 
potion  or  pouring  it  on  something,  it  may 
kill  you  or  it  may  have  no  effect  at  all.  At 
this  point,  you  still  don't  know  what  the 
potion  or  liquid  does,  but  you've  already 
used  it.  Different  from  a  spell,  the  use  of 
which  is  usually  revealed  after  reading  it 
or  finding  out  its  name,  potions  and  liq- 
uids have  to  be  tried  again  and  again  to 
learn  how  to  use  them.  Potions  and  magi- 
cal liquids  are  usually  contained  in  some 
kind  of  vial  or  bottle.  Often,  there  may  be 
a  label  on  the  container  that  indicates  the 
usage.  If  not,  you  have  to  experiment. 

The  key  to  successful  usage 

of  a  potion  or  powder  is  to 

know  when  to  use  it. 

Drinking  a  potion  may  have  different 
effects  on  different  characters  in  a  game. 
Particularly  in  role-playing  games,  the  ef- 
fect of  the  potion  depends  on  the  character 
and  the  qualities  of  that  character.  A  po- 
tion or  liquid  may  have  an  immediate  ef- 
fect, or  you  might  have  to  wait  a  number 
of  turns  before  the  magic  becomes  potent. 
Pouring  a  potion  or  magical  liquid  almost 
always  takes  effect  immediately.  It  may 
burn  what  it  falls  upon  or  transform  the 
object  or  character  into  something  else. 
The  limits  of  the  magic  in  the  case  of 
pouring  are  large  because  the  liquid  isn't 
consumed  by  a  specific  character,  in  which 
case  the  magic  is  limited  to  the  character 
who  consumed  the  liquid. 

Gauntlet  uses  potions  to  destroy  a  large 
number  of  enemies  at  once.  When  a  po- 
tion is  found  in  the  game's  mazes,  it  is 
kept  in  the  character's  inventory  until 
used.  When  used,  it  eliminates  all  of  the 
enemies  on  one  screen  according  to  who 
uses  the  potion.  If  a  wizard  character  uses 
the  potion,  its  effect  will  be  to  clear  every 


52    AUGUST  1988 


enemy,  whereas  if  an  elf  character  acti- 
vates the  potion,  only  a  percentage  of  the 
enemy  is  killed.  Gauntlet  is  an  example  of 
a  game  where  the  abilities  of  the  charac- 
ter directly  determine  the  usefulness  of 
the  magic. 

From  Adventure  to  Zork,  all 

have  at  least  a  tiny  bit  of 

magic  that  the  player  can 

perform. 

Powders  and  solid  magical  substances 
are  tougher  to  use  in  adventure  games. 
Powders  are  mixed  with  other  powders, 
liquids  or  other  substances  or  are  thrown 
at  another  character  or  thing  to  take  ef- 
fect. If  the  powder  or  solid  is  meant  to  be 
mixed,  it  is  tougher  to  discover  the  correct 
usage.  This  is  because  of  the  various 
things  with  which  the  magical  substances 
can  be  combined.  There  is  usually  some 
kind  of  clue  that  tells  you  how  to  mix  the 
substances.  In  the  case  of  throwing,  trial 
and  error  takes  over  again.  Throwing  usu- 
ally provides  a  wider  range  for  the  magic's 
effectiveness,  but  it  also  eliminates  any 
chance  of  reusing  the  substance. 

Feud  is  a  fairly  recent  game  that  estab- 
lished a  rather  unique  game  system  in 
that  the  goal  is  to  create  a  certain  number 
of  potions  and  powders  from  various 
plants,  herbs  and  other  substances  that 
you  find  throughout  the  game's  geogra- 
phy. The  interesting  thing  to  note  about 
the  game  is  that  the  substances  don't  com- 
bine in  only  one  way.  You  may  mix  them 
in  any  way,  but  the  result  may  not  be 
magical.  The  game  is  yet  another  exam- 
ple of  how  intelligent  use  of  resources 
translates  to  strong  magic. 

Wands  and  Staffs 

The  magic  wand  has  been  the  popular 
symbol  of  a  magician  since  the  first  magi- 
cians began  their  practice.  Used  as  a 
means  of  concentrating  magical  power  in 
a  stream  that  could  be  directed  through 
the  wand  to  the  target  for  the  magic, 
wands  have  been  the  source  of  various  ef- 
fects for  magicians.  In  adventure  games, 
wands,  staffs  and  other  such  objects  are 
used  extensively  in  the  way  that  real  ma- 
gicians claim  they  work.  The  major  uses 
of  wands  and  staffs  are:  pointing  at  the  re- 
ceiver of  the  magic  and  waving  the  wand 
or  staff. 

Pointing  the  wand  at  somebody  or 
something  may  be  all  that  is  needed  to 


perform  magic.  Usually,  some  kind  of  bolt 
or  energy  beam  comes  out  of  the  end  of 
the  wand  and  enters  the  next  object  with 
which  it  comes  in  contact.  Wands  and 
staffs  have  all  kinds  of  purposes,  from 
bringing  death  or  life  to  transforming  the 
target  into  something  else.  Usually,  un- 
like in  real  life,  you  can't  point  at  some- 
body or  something  accidentally  in  an  ad- 
venture game.  More  than  likely,  you'll 
have  to  knowingly  decide  via  command  to 
point  your  wand  or  staff  somewhere. 

Beyond  Zork  offers  a  good  example  of 
the  use  of  a  staff  to  kill  an  enemy.  In  your 
travels,  you  have  stumbled  upon  a  staff  of 
annihilation.  You've  found  out  its  purpose 
by  having  it  examined  by  a  wise  woman. 
While  traveling  through  the  forest,  you 
come  across  a  vicious  hellhound.  With  no 
other  means  of  killing  the  creature,  you 
point  the  staff  at  it,  and  it  disappears  into 
nothingness. 

This  example  illustrates  that  the  magic 
of  the  wand  was  called  upon  when  needed. 
This  is  true  of  any  magic  you  use  and  is  a 
lesson  to  be  learned.  In  the  case  of  wands 
and  staffs,  you  may  only  have  a  few 
chances  to  use  the  magic  contained  in  the 
item.  In  Beyond  Zork,  you  may  only  use 
the  staffs  or  wands  three  times.  After  that, 
their  magic  is  lost.  To  test  your  wands  and 
staffs,  as  well  as  to  find  out  what  they  do, 
repeatedly  point  them  at  objects  to  see 
how  many  times  you  can  use  them.  By  do- 
ing this,  you  will  also  find  out  the  effect  of 
the  wand  or  staff  in  the  game. 

Waving  a  wand  or  staff  has  more  of  the 
mystique  of  classic  magic  involved  than 
simply  pointing  the  instrument.  The 
tougher  thing  about  waving  a  wand  or 
staff  is  that  you  aren't  directing  the  power 
toward  any  one  place. 

Wands  and  staffs  have  all 

kinds  of  purposes,  from 

bringing  death  or  life  fo& 

transforming  the  target  into 

something  else. 

Usually,  the  magic  is  directed  toward 
anything  that  can  respond  to  it  in  the  lo- 
cation in  which  you  are  standing.  This 
makes  a  puzzle  easier  or  tougher,  depend- 
ing on  the  situation. 

In  Adventure,  you  have  to  cross  a  fis- 
sure to  get  a  diamond.  The  only  thing 

Continued  on  page  102 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE     53 


Last  month  marked  the  first 
anniversary  of  the  Amiga  Public 
Domain  column  in  Commodore 
Magazine,  so  here's  a  special 
article  to  commemorate  the 
occasion.  This  month  I  am 
presenting  awards  for  the  best 
Amiga  public  domain  programs 
reviewed  in  the  past  year. 

Some  of  you  will  wonder  why  I'm  doing 
a  "Best  of  column  now,  instead  of  at 
the  end  of  the  year.  In  addition  to  the  fact 
that  I  started  this  column  in  the  middle  of 
last  year,  keep  in  mind  that  there  are  lead 
times  involved  with 
writing  for  a  monthly 
magazine.  By  writing 
this  article  now,  Fm 
much  closer  to  the  end 
of  a  calendar  year  than 
if  I  wrote  this  article  for 
a  December  release. 
Also,  the  summer  is  a 
good  time  for  such  an 
article,  since  most  peo- 
ple have  some  vacation 
time  on  their  hands  to 
catch  up  on  the  public 
domain  gems  they  may 
have  missed  previously. 

This  column  first  ap- 
peared in  July  1987,  so 
I  did  some  catching  up 
in  the  first  few  install- 
ments and  reviewed 
many  programs  that 
were  actually  released 
in  1986. 1  will  not  be 
considering  programs 
written  in  1986  for 
awards. 

Here  are  this  year's  awards  for  the  best 
Amiga  Public  Domain  programs.  I've 
awarded  gold,  silver  and  bronze  medals  in 
each  category.  I  also  give  "honorable  men- 
tion" awards  in  certain  categories  to  one 
or  more  Amiga  PD  programs  that  didn't 
make  the  top  three,  but  still  deserve  rec- 
ognition. In  a  couple  of  categories  I  only 
gave  medal  awards  to  two  programs,  since 
I  couldn't  find  any  other  programs  that 
were  truly  worthy  of  a  bronze  medal 
award.  Most  of  the  software  categories  are 
self-explanatory. 

As  far  as  the  demo  categories  are  con- 
cerned, I  separated  the  demos  into  "Nor- 
mal" and  "Custom"  classifications.  The 
Normal  Demo  category  holds  demos  that 
were  created  with  only  one  main  commer- 
cial graphics  package  that  is  currently 


available;  therefore  demos  are  of  the  type 
that  the  average  Amiga  owner  can  hope  to 
create  some  day.  The  Custom  Demo  cate- 
gory holds  all  the  other  demos  that  for  one 
reason  or  another  are  out  of  the  reach  of 
the  average  Amiga  user  in  terms  of  creat- 
ing with  what  is  currently  available,  at 
least  without  using  several  different 
graphic  packages.  And  the  other  category 
lists  programs  that  didn't  have  any  com- 
petition, so  there  was  no  need  to  create  a 
separate  category. 

I  have  included  either  a  listing  of  the 
Fish  disk  number  that  each  program  re- 
sides on  (if  this  is  the  case)  or  the  file  num- 
ber of  the  program  in  the  file  libraries  in 
PeopleLink's  AmigaZone. 


Amiga 
Public 
Domain 


by  Qnokom  Ki+tietf. 


There  are  three  programs  that  don't 
have  any  reference  at  all:  The  Final  List 
should  already  be  located  on  practically 
every  local  Amiga  BBS  in  the  country. 
The  other  two  programs,  Zeus  and  De- 
moReell  are  huge  and  therefore  can't 
practically  be  stored  as  a  downloadable 
file  (i.e.,  you  have  to  get  a  copy  of  the  disk 
itself).  A  friend  or  User  Group  will  have  to 
be  your  source  for  these. 

Games 

Gold  Medal:  Paeman87  by  Steve  Jacobs 
and  Jim  Boyd  I  AmigaZone  file  #7774; 
Shareware:  $10) 

Pacman87  deserves  applause  as  a  qual- 
ity PD  arcade  game  which  has  very  good 
graphics  and  sound.  It  is  not  only  fast  and 
challenging,  but  it  also  has  some  original- 


ity. The  biggest  reason  why  it  receives  the 
gold  medal  is  not  so  much  what  it  does, 
but  when  it  came  out.  Although  there 
were  quite  a  few  games  out  for  the  Amiga 
from  the  start,  before  mid  1987  the  num- 
ber of  quality  arcade  games  could  be 
counted  your  fingers.  Pacman87  gave 
Amiga  users  a  good  PD  arcade  game  to 
play  while  they  waited  for  the  Christmas 
flood  of  arcade  games  for  the  Amiga  500 
to  start  rolling  in. 

Silver  Medal:  Larn  by  Edmund  Bumette 
(Fish  63) 

Despite  the  release  of  commercial  fanta- 
sy role-playing  adventure  games  like 
Rouge  and  Ultima  HI,  the  D&D-style 

game  that  Amiga  users 
were  most  enthralled 
with  was  Hack,  a  port  of 
the  famous  adventure 
game  from  the  Unix  en- 
vironment that  caused 
people  to  consume  free 
time  as  fast  as  sloppy 
multitasking  programs 
consume  memory. 

But  Hack  had  some 
less  than  desirable  fea- 
tures. The  most  annoy- 
ing feature  was  that 
your  character  had  to 
constantly  stuff  food  in 
his  face.  Unlike  the 
real  world,  Hack  char- 
acters had  a  very  short 
life  span  (like  20  min- 
utes) if  they  didn't  eat. 
This  forced  your  char- 
acter to  eat  the  likes  of 
dead  rats,  ores  and  ko- 
bolds,  (Can  you  imag- 
ine a  knight  dining  on 
a  foul,  evil  creature 
after  killing  it  in  battle?  I  didn't  think  so!) 
Hack  also  had  no  real  "safety  zone,"  where 
your  character  could  escape  the  dungeon 
to  take  a  breather  and  gather  his  wits. 
Equally  frustrating  was  that  there  was  no 
place  to  exit  to  automatically  find  shops, 
banks  and  other  businesses  an  adventurer 
needs  in  order  to  better  attain  his  long- 
term  goal. 

These  are  some  of  the  reasons  why 
when  the  adventure  game  Larn  (also  port- 
ed from  the  Unix  world)  first  appeared  for 
the  Amiga,  a  lot  of  barbarians  who  just 
happened  to  own  Amigas  dragged  out  the 
of  drinking  horn  to  celebrate  the  occasion! 
Although  Larn  was  of  the  same  fantasy 
role-playing  adventure  game  genre,  it  dif- 
fered in  many  ways  from  Hack.  First  of 
all,  in  addition  to  Larn's  two  dungeons  (a 


54    AUGUST  1988 


standard  dungeon  and  a  very  deadly  one 
which  is  designed  especially  for  those 
Larn  characters  who  are  quickly  ap- 
proaching demi-god  status)  Larn  has  a 
surface  world.  On  the  surface  world  is  a 
bank,  a  college,  a  couple  of  shops  and 

Pacman87  gave  Amiga  users 
a  good  PD  arcade  game  to 
play  while  they  waited  for  the 
flood  of  games  for  the  Amiga 
500  to  start  rolling  in. 


more.  And  naturally  your  character  starts 
his  adventuring  life  here,  with  a  little 
time  to  prepare  before  entering  his  first 
life-or-death  battle.  A  Larn  character  does 
not  have  to  worry  about  eating.  He  does 
have  a  time  limit  to  his  adventure,  so  he 
can't  exactly  decide  to  take  the  day  off.  but 
at  least  you  don't  have  to  constantly  worry 
about  where  your  character  will  get  his 
next  meal  in  order  to  stay  alive. 

Probably  the  best  thing  about  Larn  is 
that  (unlike  Hack),  most  mere  mortals 
stand  a  decent  chance  of  actually  winning 
the  game.  So  if  you're  a  real  D&D  addict 
and  are  looking  for  an  adventure  game 
that  is  truly  addicting  yet  is  not  sadistic, 
Larn  is  your  cup  of  tea.  And  if  you  finish  it 
a  bit  too  quickly  for  your  tastes,  you  still 
can  enjoy  Hack,  the  game  best  known  for 
devouring  summer  vacations. 

Bronze  Medal:  Grav Attack  by  Scott 

Peterson  (AmigaZone  file  #9205; 
Shareware:  $10) 


If  you  want  a  good  Amiga  shareware  ar- 
cade game  that  doesn't  remind  you  of  any- 
thing you've  seen  before,  check  out  Grav- 
Attack which  is  in  a  world  of  its  own.  At 
first  it  may  remind  you  of  another  game 
in  the  Lunar  Lander  genre,  but  it  certain- 
ly isn't.  Although  you  do  have  to  pilot  a 
ship  around  varying  terrain,  that's  about 
the  only  similarity  to  Lunar  Lander-type 
games. 

The  goal  of  each  level  (there  are  17  lev- 
els, and  after  many  hours  of  playing  1 
didn't  get  past  level  seven)  is  to  catch  six 
keys  that  are  spinning  in  different  loca- 
tions while  avoiding  most  terrain  features 
as  well  as  the  many  laser  cannons  that 
are  always  firing.  Although  gravity  is  in- 
deed a  factor,  is  it  not  a  constant.  It  can 
vary  from  zero  to  a  very  steep  accelera- 
tion, keeping  you  on  your  toes.  There  are 
many  objects  to  navigate  around,  but  not 
all  will  destroy  your  ship  if  you  touch 
them.  Certain  planets  and  other  terrain 
objects  have  the  consistency  of  rubber, 
causing  your  ship  to  harmlessly  bounce 
off  the  surface.  Like  Lunar  Lander-type 
games  you  do  have  a  limited  fuel  supply. 
But  in  GravAttack  earning  fuel,  points 
and  extra  ships  is  complicated.  There  are 
many  different  bonuses  (each  of  which  has 
its  own  unique  set  of  conditions  which 
must  be  met)  which  can  be  earned  on  each 
level.  Some  bonuses  are  "universal"  and 
can  be  earned  on  any  level,  while  others 

Hall  of  Fame 

There  are  two  very  important  public  do- 
main programs  that  deserve  special  recog- 
nition despite  their  age.  So  let  me  intro- 
duce the  Amiga  Public  Domain  Hall  of 
Fame  with  its  first  two  inductees.  The 
Amiga  PD  Hall  of  Fame  will  permanently 
enshrine  programs  that  have  withstood 
the  test  of  time  to  prove  to  be  not  just 
great  PD  programs,  but  in  some  cases 
prime  examples  of  what  the  Amiga  can 
do.  These  programs  have  single-handedly 
brought  to  light  new  features  or  possibili- 
ties to  the  Amiga  community  that  were 
previously  non-existent.  Here  are  the  first 
two  entries  into  the  Amiga  PD  Hall  of 
Fame: 

ASDG-RRD  by  Perry  Kivolowitz  and 
ASDG  Inc.  (Fish  58;  Shareware:  $10) 

We  all  know  that  the  Amiga,  being  a 
multitasking  machine,  is  susceptible  to  a 
poorly  written  program  trashing  the  en- 
tire multitasking  environment.  Especially 
back  in  1986,  during  the  days  of  Kick- 
start/Workbench  version  1.1,  Guru  Medi- 


are  only  active  on  a  certain  level. 

The  graphics  and  particularly  the  digi- 
tized sounds  help  to  keep  the  game  inter- 
esting. Although  the  pace  isn't  quite  as  fu- 
rious as  PacMan87,  GravAttack  is  just  as 
challenging  an  arcade  game. 

Honorable  Mention:  Missile  Defense  by 

Glen  Merriman  (Fish  50) 

Missile  Defense  certainly  doesn't  sport 
the  fancy  graphics  of  PacMan87  nor  the 
j  complexity  of  GravAttack,  but  it  blows 
away  both  games  in  one  aspect — speed. 
Missile  Defense  is  programed  in  100  per- 
cent assembly  language,  and  as  a  result  it 
is  blindly  fast.  While  you  usually  wouldn't 
want  to  multitask  with  most  games,  you 
may  find  you  have  to  run  other  programs 
with  Missile  Defense  in  order  to  slow  it 
down  enough  to  give  yourself  a  fighting 
chance.  Missile  Defense  also  sports  great 
digitized  sounds,  including  its  infamous 
opening  scream  which  is  guaranteed  to 
distract  you  enough  to  make  you  do  terri- 
bly in  your  first  couple  of  games! 

;  Terminal  Programs 

j  Gold  Medal:  AMIC  PD  TERM  by  David 

|  Salas  (AmigaZone  file  #9296) 

AMIC  PD  TERM  has  become  the  de- 

|  fault  PD  general  purpose  terminal  pro- 
gram for  Amiga  power  users.  AMlC  PD 
TERM  was  the  first  PD  terminal  program 
to  bring  many  important  features  to  the 

tations  appeared  regularly  for  most 
Amiga  users.  While  Commodore  was  still 
working  on  KickstarfWorkbench  1.2,  us- 
!  ers  managed  as  best  they  could. 

The  ASDG-RRD  was  the  first  Amiga 
PD  program  (actually  more  like  the  first 
Amiga  program — PE lor  commercial),  that 
tried  to  help  users  cope  with  Guru  Medita- 
tions. It  didn't  stop  the  Guru,  but  it  did  al- 
low people  to  recover  much  more  quickly 
and  get  back  to  whatever  they  were  using 
before  the  crash.  It  also  allowed  people  to 
greatly  reduce  the  chance  of  losing  work 
to  the  Guru.  As  long  as  one  made  a  habit 
of  saving  projects  to  the  RRD  frequently 
(which  unlike  saving  to  a  floppy  disk  was 
very  quick  and  therefore  relatively  pain- 
less), there  was  no  need  to  worry  about  los- 
ing the  latest  revisions  on  a  project  due  to 
a  Guru. 

The  ASDG-RRD  also  increased  aware- 
ness concerning  using  memory  as  a  disk 
device.  Of  course,  Commodore  did  have  a 
RAMdisk  device  present  in  Workbench 
(The  1.1  version  of  the  RAMdisk  had 
bugs,  but  at  least  it  worked),  but  it  was 
barely  mentioned  in  the  documentation. 


56    AUGUST  1988 


Amiga  telecommunicating  community. 
AMC  PD  TERM  introduced  autodial- 


AMICPD  TERM  has  become 
the  default  PD  general 
purpose  terminal  program  for 
Amiga  power  users. 


ing  that  was  actually  convenient  to  use. 
AMIC  PD  TERM  was  the  first  to  bring  an 
advanced  protocol,  in  this  case  Ymodem, 
to  Amiga  users.  The  program  also  pio- 
neered the  use  of  gadgets  is  a  serious  way, 
including  the  introduction  of  a  Sidebar,  in 
which  commands  can  be  activated  by  just 
clicking  on  a  gadget. 

It  also  introduced  a  separate  configura- 
tion file  that  allowed  the  user  to  set  many 
parameters  before  the  program  was  actu- 
ally loaded  in.  One  of  the  parameters  that 
could  be  denned  was  the  number  of  bit 
planes  AMIC  PD  TERM  would  use  for  its 
display.  This  allowed  those  who  didn't  care 
about  many  fancy  colors  in  the  display  to 
cut  down  the  number  of  bit  planes  allocat- 
ed in  order  to  speed  up  the  display  (as  well 
as  to  save  memory  for  those  who  can't  af- 
ford to  waste  it).  The  configuration  file 
also  allowed  you  to  assign  paths  to  the  di- 
rectories which  AMIC  PD  TERM  would 

Since  many  people  bought  expansion 
memory  in  1986  and  early  1987,  but  very 
few  owned  a  hard  drive  yet,  knowing  how 
to  use  a  RAMdisk  made  life  a  lot  easier. 
The  ASDG-RRD  stills  hold  the  title  of 
Amiga  shareware  program  with  the  larg- 
est number  of  registered  users,  which  con- 
firms its  widespread  use  by  Amiga  users 
everywhere,  as  well  as  its  right  to  be  en- 
shrined in  the  Amiga  PD  Hall  of  Fame. 

Juggler  by  Eric  Graham  (Fish  97) 

Although  the  Amiga  can  be  used  for 
nearly  any  purpose,  clearly  it  is  still  pri- 
marily thought  of  as  a  graphics  machine. 
And  when  it  comes  to  demoing  the  Amiga 
to  a  new  user,  most  Amiga  users  aren't  ex- 
actly waiting  with  anticipation  to  show  to 
their  friends  the  latest  spreadsheet.  {HI 
show  you  some  great  business  programs 
later,  but  first . . .!)  And  until  December 
1986,  I'm  sure  most  of  you  were  dragging 
out  the  world-famous  Boing!  demo  while 
cranking  your  stereo  up  (you  do  have  your 
Amiga  hooked  up  to  your  stereo,  right?). 

But  in  December  1986  the  Boing!  demo 
was  forever  replaced  by  a  new  animation 


upload  from  and  download  to. 

Although  AMIC  PD  TERM  still  doesn't 
fully  support  ANSI  screen  commands,  at 
least  it  does  allow  use  of  alternate  charac- 
ter sets,  namely  the  IBM  character  set. 
This  is  very  important  since  although 
most  MS-DOS-based  BBS  programs  allow 
the  caller  to  disable  any  ANSI  commands, 
most  will  not  allow  the  caller  to  disable 
the  IBM  graphic  characters  from  being 
displayed. 

Since  the  parent  company  behind 
AMIC  PD  TERM,  Amic  Development, 
has  now  moved  the  program  into  the  com- 

from  a  newcomer  to  the  Amiga  PD  scene, 
Eric  Graham.  Wow,  what  a  way  to  enter 
the  Amiga  PD  arena!  In  that  month 
Amiga  users  were  not  only  dazzled  by  a 
"round"  little  figure  who  probably  would 
fit  right  in  with  a  circus  show,  but  we  were 
also  introduced  to  two  new  concepts. 

First  of  all,  Juggler  was  the  first  anima-  ' 
tion  to  use  the  Amiga's  Hold  and  Modify 
(HAM)  graphics  mode.  Although  the  ma-   ' 
jority  of  Amiga  users  at  the  time  had  al- 
ready been  introduced  to  HAM  graphics 
(primarily  via  the  first  demo  HAM  pic- 
tures produced  with  the  yet  unreleased 
HAM  digitizer  DigiView  and  Commo- 
dore's first  and  only  arcade  game  for  the 
Amiga,  Mindwalker),  HAM  graphics  and 
animations  were  basically  considered  mu-  -, 
tually  exclusive  until  Juggler  appeared. 

Juggler  also  introduced  Amiga  users  to 
producing  graphic  images  via  ray-tracing. 
The  vast  majority  of  computer  users  at 
the  time  had  never  heard  of  ray-tracing. 
(Until  the  Amiga  came  along,  ray-tracing 
was  only  practical  on  graphics  worksta- 
tions from  the  likes  of  Sun  and  Apollo.) 
Juggler  gave  an  astonishing  example  of 


mercial  field,  we  will  no  longer  see  any 
new  versions  (the  last  PD  version  being 
version  .58E)  to  AMIC  PD  TERM  in  the 
public  domain.  Nevertheless,  AMIC  still 
sets  the  standard  for  a  full-featured  PD 
general-purpose  terminal  program  for 
other  programmers  to  meet  or  exceed. 

Silver  Medal:  Communicator  by  Dan 

James  (Fish  71) 

There  are  two  reasons  why  I  am  giving 

an  award  to  Communicator.  The  first  and 

more  obvious  reason  is  that  in  early  1987, 

Continued  on  page  91 

how  to  exploit  the  potential  of  HAM  mode 
via  ray-tracing. 

Of  course,  what  may  be  more  important 
(at  least  in  terms  of  Amiga  CPU  sales) 
was  the  Juggler's  impact  on  the  general 
computer  world.  Juggler  has  been  shown 
on  computer  shows  and  has  even  been 
seen  on  no  less  than  MTV  (in  a  Tom  Petty 
video).  If  imitation  is  the  sincerest  form  of 
flattery,  then  Juggler  has  earned  deep  re- 
spect from  those  who  use  other  computers. 
But  unlike  the  Boing!  demo,  which  wasn't 
totally  impossible  for  other  computers  to 
imitate  (at  least  in  the  graphics  depart- 
ment), Juggler  jumped  light-years  ahead 
of  what  most  computers  can  output  with 
their  hardware. 

Juggler  will  always  be  remembered 
dearly  in  the  hearts  of  Amigans  every- 
where, even  into  the  1990s  when  Amiga 
hackers  with  money  will  be  having  fun  us- 
ing new  operating  systems  on  their 
680XX-based  Amiga  and  Amiga  arcade 
games  using  HalfBrite  and  HAM  modes 
are  commonplace.  I  don't  think  there's 
any  question  that  this  demo  belongs  in 
the  Amiga  PD  Hall  of  Fame! 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE    57 


by  John  Jermaine 


roy  Lyndon: 

T^ejeruler  of  tne 


The  microcomputer  software 
industry  has  undergone  an 
interesting  evolution.  It  started 
out  as  a  small  collection  of '  'spare 
bedroom"  operations,  which  later 
evolved  into  multi-million  dollar 
international  corporations.  One 
Commodore  64  game  programmer 
has  seen  these  changes  take  place 
while  actively  contributing  to  the 
growth  of  the  industry.  You  might 
recognize  some  of  the  game  titles 
he  has  worked  on:  Snokie,  Mr. 
Do,  Two-on-Two  Basketball,  Star 
Rank  Boxing,  Howard  The  Duck, 
Defender  of  The  Crown,  Speed 
Rumbler,  Hat  Trick,  etc.  His 
name,  however  is  probably 
unknown.  Here  is  the  story  of 
Troy  Lyndon. 


Troy  Lyndon 


Lyndon  is  a  23-year-old  southern  Cali- 
fomian.  He's  been  married  to  his  wife 
Carol  for  2  Vi  years,  and  they  are  the 
proud  parents  a  seven-month-old  son. 
Troy's  interests  include  robotics,  radio  con- 
trol and  playing  the  keyboard  (he  once 
performed  with  a  local  band  called  Third 
Planet). 

Why  does  Troy  Lyndon  continue  to  de- 
velop Commodore  64  software?  The  an- 
swer is  really  very  simple.  The  64  is  his  fa- 
vorite home  computer,  and  he  thinks  it's 
going  to  be  around  for  a  long  time.  If 
you're  interested  in  arcade  games  and 
sports  simulation  software,  read  on. 

John  Jermaine:  How  did  you  become  in- 
terested in  computers? 
Troy  Lyndon:  Back  in  1978,  my  father 
brought  home  a  Radio  Shack  TRS-80 
Model  One  computer,  I  was  13  years  old  at 
the  time  and  totally  intrigued  with  my 
new  toy.  After  all,  there  weren't  many  mi- 
crocomputers in  private  homes  back  then. 
I  quickly  began  programming  in  BASIC 
and  mastered  the  language  a  couple  of 
years  later. 

Several  friends  of  mine  at  the  time  con- 
vinced me  to  start  working  with  Assembly 
Language.  They  claimed  it  really  wasn't 
very  hard  to  learn.  My  father,  on  the  other 
hand,  was  against  the  whole  idea.  He 
knew  Assembly  Language  was  a  pain  the 
butt  for  most  adults  (and  I  was  still  just  a 
teenager).  Dad  also  feared  Fd  be  racking 
my  brain  and  might  lose  interest  in  pro- 
gramming altogether.  Fortunately,  that 
was  not  the  case.  I  still  wonder  if  he  was 
genuinely  concerned  or  simply  challeng- 
ing me  to  learn  Assembly  Language  on 
my  own. 

By  1982  David  Jennings  (one  of  my  lo- 
cal computer  friends)  and  I  were  busy 
writing  a  collection  of  BASIC  program- 
ming aids  (in  Z-80  Assembly  Language). 
Jermaine:  What  inspired  you  to  become  a 


professional  game  programmer? 
Lyndon:  After  co-developing  utilities  for  a 
while,  I  wanted  to  do  something  totally 
different  on  my  own.  This  was  also  the 
time  when  the  Gahxian  coin-op  machine 
came  out.  It  quickly  swallowed  a  number 
of  my  quarters  and  got  me  to  thinking 
there  might  be  a  market  for  microcom- 
puter action  games.  Space  Voyager,  my 
first  game  project,  took  approximately 
seven  months  to  develop.  I  really  learned 
a  lot  from  that  experience,  because  it  was 
my  first  serious  attempt  to  do  Assembly 
Language  programming  (by  myself). 
After  Space  Voyager  was  completed,  I 
wrote  Great  Wave  in  30  days,  and  Space 
Quest  (my  third  game)  required  another 
60  days  of  work.  It's  interesting  to  note 
that  all  three  programs  shared  the  same 
source  code,  but  every  game  was  com- 
pletely different  from  the  others. 

I  eventually  sold  these  programs  to 
CLoad  Magazine,  but  before  the  deal  was 
made  I  submitted  them  to  a  company 
called  Funsoft  (now  known  as  MainStay). 
They  were  in  the  process  of  leaving  the 
TRS-80  software  market,  so  Tom  Nale- 
vanko  (the  president  of  the  company) 
asked  me  to  develop  a  Commodore  64 
game.  I  told  him  I  couldn't  do  it,  because  I 
had  never  worked  with  6502  Assembly 
Language  before,  and  I  didn't  own  a  Com- 
modore 64  to  do  it  on.  After  checking 
around,  I  managed  to  locate  another 
friend  (Scott  Maxwell)  who  had  the  com- 
puter and  offered  to  co-author  a  64  conver- 
sion with  me.  Scott  actually  did  most  of 
the  Time  Runner  programming,  while  I 
helped  him  along  and  learned  from  the 
experience.  A  short  time  later,  I  created 
my  own  64  conversions  of  Snokie  and  Flak 
for  Funsoft. 

While  all  of  this  was  going  on,  two  im- 
portant people  came  into  my  life.  Yves 
Lempereur  wrote  the  Atari  800  version  of 
Snokie,  an  action  graphic  game  featuring 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE     59 


a  cute  little  penguin  moving  across  a 
treacherous  ice  flow.  As  I  generated  the 
Commodore  version  of  the  game,  he 
helped  me  solve  a  number  of  difficult 
problems.  Every  now  and  then  I  still  ask 
Yves  for  advice,  because  he's  a  good  friend 
and  an  excellent  programmer.  I  also  met 
John  Cutter  during  this  period  of  time 
(even  though  he  didn't  work  at  Funsoft). 
John  taught  me  quite  a  bit  about  game 
designing  in  general,  which  came  in 
handy  when  we  worked  together  at 
Gamestar. 

Just  when  things  seemed  to  be  going 
right,  my  boss  gave  me  some  terrible 
news:  Funsoft  was  going  to  support  the 
Macintosh  computer.  This  meant  they 
wouldn't  have  anything  for  me  to  do. 
After  thinking  things  over,  I  negotiated  a 
deal  (with  Tom  Nalevanko)  to  rent  my  old 
office.  This  arrangement  gave  me  a  decent 
place  to  program,  even  though  I  never  de- 
veloped material  for  Funsoft  again. 
Jermaine:  How  did  you  become  involved 
with  Datasoft? 


We  will  always  do  games  as 
long  as  loyal  customers  enjoy 
entertainment  products. 


Lyndon:  A  few  years  back,  John  Garcia 
{the  man  in  charge  of  Datasoft's  develop- 
ment team  back  then)  offered  me  a  full- 
time  position.  At  the  time  I  couldn't  accept 
the  job,  since  I  was  still  attending  school. 
Once  I  was  free,  I  hit  him  up  for  a  job. 
Jermaine:  Tell  me  about  your  Datasoft 
career. 

Lyndon:  First  of  all,  I  never  actually  be- 
came a  salaried  employee  of  Datasoft.  A 
contract  was  drawn  up  and  had  to  be 
signed  before  I  officially  started  a  project. 
My  first  assignment  consisted  of  finishing 
up  their  Lost  Tomb  program.  Believe  it  or 
not,  I  corrected  over  50  "bugs"  (in  the 
game)  during  a  two- week  period.  This  feat 
apparently  impressed  somebody  at  the 
company,  because  they  quickly  signed  me 
up  to  program  the  game  Mr.  Do  (the  day  I 
completed  Lost  Tomb). 

Someone  recently  asked  me  if  I  could 
extract  source  code  from  the  average  coin- 
op  arcade  machine  and  use  that  material 
to  produce  a  64  conversion  of  the  game. 
Yes,  it  is  physically  possible  to  do  such  a 
thing,  but  it  usually  isn't  the  fastest  way 
of  getting  the  job  done.  In  Mr.  Do,  for  ex- 
ample, we  disassembled  the  arcade  game 


■ 


code  (to  observe  how  the  bad  guys  attack 
you  on  the  screen).  We  called  this  enemy 
strategy  the  "shortest  path  routine,"  be- 
cause the  bad  guys  are  always  taking  the 
shortest  path  to  your  present  location.  We 
carefully  examined  that  portion  of  the 
code,  figured  out  how  it  worked,  and  re- 
wrote the  same  routine  (in  our  own  way) 
on  the  computer.  By  the  way,  I  was  very 
pleased  with  the  end  result.  We  occasion- 
ally write  graphic  conversion  utilities 
which  allow  us  to  use  some  of  the  coin-op 
artwork.  Even  though  this  can  be  done, 
approximately  75%  of  our  graphics  are 
still  generated  from  scratch. 

Mr.  Do  also  had  the  ability  to  move  up 
to  20  objects  around  the  screen  at  any  giv- 
en moment.  It  was  one  of  the  first  home 
computer  games  featuring  character  ani- 
mation in  conjunction  with  sprite  anima- 
tion. This  is  no  big  deal  today,  but  four 
years  ago  that  technology  was  really 
something  special.  When  all  was  said  and 
done,  it  took  me  approximately  six 
months  to  generate  the  Mr.  Do  arcade 
game  conversion.  Incidentally,  Mr.  Do  was 
my  final  Datasoft  project. 
Jermaine:  What  happened  after  that? 
Lyndon:  Several  days  went  by  before 
John  Cutter  introduced  me  to  Scott  Orr 
(president  of  Gamestar).  He  seemed  to  be 
a  great  guy,  who  had  gathered  together  an 
incredible  group  of  talented  individuals. 
These  people  included  Ed  Ringler  and 
John  Cutter.  Ed  Ringler  was  very  ambi- 
tious, and  he  shared  his  enthusiasm  with 
the  people  around  him.  John  Cutter  was 


the  mellow,  level-headed  member  of  the 
team.  He  was  a  good  programmer  who  did 
a  variety  of  things  very  well  (game  design 
was  his  specialty). 

I  really  wanted  to  become  a  part  of  this 
group  and  joined  its  ranks  when  a  pro- 
grammer left  the  company.  By  the  way, 
the  Gamestar  working  environment  was 
totally  different  from  anything  I'd  exper- 
ienced before.  I  was  dealing  with  profes- 
sional people  who  demanded  perfection 
and  wanted  the  game  out  tomorrow,  so  to 
speak.  They  also  gave  me  impractical 
deadlines  to  meet,  forcing  me  to  do  quality 
work  at  a  faster  rate  of  speed.  I  didn't 
know  it  at  the  time,  but  every  experience  I 
had  at  Gamestar  prepared  me  for  running 
my  own  company. 

Jermaine:  Can  you  give  me  some  infor- 
mation about  Star  Rank  Boxing? 
Lyndon:  Star  Rank  Boxing  contains  an 
unusual  opponent  strategy  you  won't  find 
in  other  games.  Someone  read  a  magazine 
article  where  1,000  people  were  given  a 
particular  partem  of  numbers.  A  moment 
later,  they  were  asked  to  repeat  the  se- 
quence to  the  person  conducting  the  test. 
After  giving  each  person  the  same  set  of 
tests,  a  significant  percentage  of  the  group 
couldn't  repeat  one  or  two  of  the  se- 
quences. It  was  automatically  assumed 
these  number  patterns  were  the  most  un- 
predictable, so  we  incorporated  them  into 
the  computer  logic  of  the  boxing  opponent. 
Scott  Orr,  John  Cutter  and  myself  spent 
many  hours  perfecting  this  component  of 
the  game,  and  I  have  to  say  it  operates 
very  well.  Star  Rank  Boxing  is  still  a  big 
seller,  even  though  it's  been  on  the  market 
for  about  three  years.  (It's  now  marketed 
under  Activision's  Solid  Gold  label.) 

Before  we  go  any  farther,  I'd  like  to  dis- 
cuss the  difference  between  artificial  and 
programmed  intelligence.  Programmers 
are  constantly  bragging  about  the  artift- 


Street  Fighter,  Troy's  all-time  favorite  game. 


60    AUGUST  1988 


rial  intelligence  in  their  games,  when 
meet  of  the  time  they  should  be  calling  it 
"programmed"  intelligence.  If  the  compute 
er  has  true  "artificial  intelligence,"  it 
learns  indefinitely  by  itself  forever.  A 
complex  testing  operation  of  this  nature 
also  requires  a  vast  amount  of  memory. 
'"Programmed  intelligence"  simulates  hu- 
man reasoning  by  performing  a  task  in  a 
logical  manner.  This  pattern  of  intelli- 
gence is  generated  from  a  flow  chart  of  if- 
then-else  statements.  If  the  baseball  play- 
er catches  the  ball,  then  he  throws  it  to 
one  of  his  teammates.  The  computer  rea- 
sons in  much  the  same  manner.  It  can't 
think  about  how  to  react  to  a  given  situa- 
tion, unless  that  factor  was  programmed 
in. 

Jermaine:  Tell  me  about  Two-on-Two 
Basketball. 

Lyndon:  Twoon-Two  Basketball  was  a 
fun  collaboration  with  Scott  On-  and  John 
Cutter  (even  though  we  argued  about  it 
most  of  the  time).  That  high-pressure  en- 
vironment was  actually  beneficial,  be- 
cause we  got  the  job  done  in  five  months. 
The  sprite  animation  data  originally  occu- 
pied 40K  of  memory.  We  were  eventually 
able  to  compress  that  code  to  approxi- 
mately 24K.  One  of  the  biggest  problems 
we  faced  was  getting  the  joystick  to  oper- 
ate correctly.  If  I  had  it  to  do  over  again, 
Td  definitely  improve  the  computer  logic 
of  the  game.  In  certain  situations,  your  op- 
ponent or  teammate  doesn't  act  as  smart 
as  he  should. 

Jermaine:  What  are  the  most  difficult 
sports  to  simulate  in  a  microcomputer  en- 
vironment? 

Lyndon:  Now  I  don't  know  this  for  a  fact, 
but  football  and  soccer  would  probably  be 
two  of  the  toughest  ones.  Both  of  these 
sports  contain  a  large  number  of  players, 
giving  the  programmer  a  complex  set  of 
variables  to  work  with.  A  means  of  mani- 
pulating those  players  correctly  can  also 
present  some  interesting  problems. 


Jermaine:  Why  did  Gamestar  develop 
Howard  The  Duck,  a  program  that  had 
nothing  to  do  with  sports? 
Lyndon:  That's  a  good  question.  I  guess 
you  could  say  we  became  obsessed  with 
the  idea  of  doing  something  spectacular 
on  the  computer.  George  Lucas  was  the 
Executive  Producer  and  the  directors  were 
involved  in  the  making  of  American  Graf- 
fiti. We  assumed  Howard  would  be  a  big 
hit  based  on  the  people  involved.  After  all, 

The  support  of  my  friends 
and  my  belief  in  myself 
finally  convinced  me  I  could 
get  any  job  I  really  wanted. 

Lucas  had  created  box  office  giants  like 
Star  Wars,  Raiders  of  The  Lost  Ark,  etc., 
and  his  track  record  was  impeccable.  I 
personally  wanted  to  do  the  program,  be- 
cause I  thought  it  would  be  our  claim  to 
fame.  Scott  Orr  also  liked  the  idea,  so  he 
worked  out  the  details  to  do  the  game  for 
Activision. 

It's  interesting  to  note  that  none  of  us 
actually  saw  the  movie  until  about  a 
month  before  the  game  was  completed. 
Lucasfilm  Ltd.  provided  a  series  of  slides 
from  the  film,  which  were  used  to  gener- 
ate the  graphics  of  the  program.  They  also 
told  us  the  basic  story  of  the  movie.  After 
talking  things  over,  we  decided  to  make 
our  program  a  direct  sequel  to  the  film. 
We  didn't  think  the  movie  plot  would  be 
well  suited  for  a  game.  Even  though  I 
didn't  make  many  initial  decisions,  when 
it  came  to  designing  the  product,  I  still 
feel  somewhat  responsible  for  this  ill-fated 
project.  By  the  way,  we  had  to  develop 
Howard  The  Duck  during  a  four-month 
cycle  (when  most  of  our  game  projects  re- 
quire a  minimum  of  six  to  nine  month's 
work).  In  short,  everything  was  done  in  a 
hurry,  and  I  believe  the  game  suffered  be- 
cause of  this  tight  scheduling. 
Jermaine:  A  moment  ago  you  mentioned 
Activision.  What  is  the  relationship  be- 
tween Gamestar  and  Activision? 
Lyndon:  When  I  first  came  to  Gamestar, 
it  was  independently  owned  and  located  in 
Santa  Barbara,  California.  In  January 
1986,  Activision  purchased  Gamestar. 
After  the  merger  took  place,  everything 
was  fine  for  about  a  year.  In  December  of 
1986,  Activision  announced  it  was  closing 
down  the  Santa  Barbara  office  and  mov- 
ing Gamestar  to  its  corporate  headquar- 


ters. Harold  Seeley  and  I  remained  be- 
hind, because  we  didn't  want  to  relocate  to 
northern  California.  Keith  and  Scott  Orr 
were  offered  positions  at  Activision,  where 
they  continued  to  carry  on  the  Gamestar 
tradition.  On  January  1, 1987, 1  was  once 
again  without  a  job. 
Jermaine:  When  and  how  was  Lyndon 
and  Associates  founded? 
Lyndon:  Believe  it  or  not,  the  company 
was  almost  never  founded.  I  wasn't  sure 
what  I  wanted  to  do  after  Gamestar  left 
the  area,  so  I  went  to  the  January  Con- 
sumer Electronics  Show  (in  Las  Vegas)  to 
look  for  new  opportunities.  It's  funny,  but 
most  of  the  people  I  talked  with  thought  I 
should  be  doing  my  own  thing.  After 
thinking  things  over,  I  suddenly  realized 
Fd  never  truly  been  out  of  a  job.  The  sup- 
port of  my  friends  and  my  belief  in  myself 
finally  convinced  me  I  could  get  any  job  I 
really  wanted  to  do. 

Selecting  a  good  name  for  my  company 
was  another  problem  altogether.  One  of 
the  first  titles  I  considered  was  Grey  Mat- 
ter (like  the  material  in  the  brain).  I  also 
liked  the  name  Discovery  Software,  but 
unfortunately  that  title  was  already  tak- 
en. When  all  was  said  and  done,  I  chose 
Lyndon  and  Associates  because  it  was 
simple  and  to  the  point.  The  company  was 
founded  in  January  of  1987  (and  incorpo- 
rated in  May  of  1987).  In  the  beginning  I 
was  by  myself,  but  other  people  gradually 
came  into  the  fold.  We  recently  changed 
the  name  of  the  company  to  Pacific 
Dataworks  International.  I  felt  the  title 
best  described  more  of  what  we  do  and  less 
ofwhoweare. 

Jermaine:  Can  you  tell  me  more  about 
Pacific  Dataworks  International  and  your 
plans  for  the  future. 

Lyndon:  Pacific  Dataworks  International 
is  currently  a  small,  prospering  business 
about  to  take  the  entertainment  develop- 
ment industry  by  storm.  When  I  started 
the  company  out  of  my  condo  in  January 
1987,  we  invaded  two  of  three  bedrooms. 
My  wife  thought  it  would  be  a  good  time 
to  move  into  office  space, 

Since  that  time  we  have  expanded  to  12 
employees  and  are  growing  slowly  but 
surely.  Our  large  in-house  and  very  exten- 
sive out-of-house  staff,  have  catapulted  us 
to  being  one  of  the  largest  entertainment 
development  companies  in  the  country. 

I  think  the  most  contributing  factors  to 
our  success  have  been,  first,  our  commit- 
ment to  quality  and  second,  the  simple 
principal  that  all  people  want  the  same 

Continued  on  page  100 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE     61 


PUMPING  GEOS 


by  Mark  Jordan 


BeckerBASIC 

At  last  I've  had  a  chance  to  spend  time 
with  BeckerBASIC,  the  first  BASIC 
language  available  for  GEOS.  The  best 
way  to  check  out  a  car  is  to  drive  it,  and 
the  best  way  to  check  out  a  programming 
language  is  to  write  a  program  using  it. 
Which  is  exactly  what  I  did.  Now  come 
along  for  a  scenic  tour  with  me,  your 
guide,  telling  all. 

Computer  Commodore  64 

Publisher:  Abacus  Software 
5370  52nd  St.  SE 
Grand  Rapids,  MI  49508 

Price:  $49.95 

Getting  Used  to  BeckerBASIC 

BeckerBASIC  takes  some  getting  used 
to,  particularly  if  you've  done  much  pro- 
gramming in  the  Commodore  64  or  128 
environment.  The  biggest  adjustment 
you're  going  to  have  to  make  is  that  no 
longer  can  you  simply  type  out  some  pro- 
gram lines,  type  RUN,  and  see  what  hap- 
pens. You  now  will  have  to  do  your  typing 
in  one  mode— called  the  Input  System— 
and  do  your  testing  in  another — the  Test- 
ing System. 

To  make  matters  even  more  confusing, 
if  you  want  to  be  able  to  simply  double- 
click your  program  icons  just  like  you  do 
with  other  GEOS  applications,  you'll  need 
to  convert  your  program  using  a  program 
that  comes  with  BeckerBASIC. 

None  of  this  is  particularly  hard  to  do, 
just  different.  And,  I  regret  to  add,  incon- 
venient. It  takes  about  nine  seconds  to 
switch  from  input  to  testing,  not  much 
when  compared  to  gigantic  time  events 
such  as  glacial  periods  and  years  between 
Chicago  Cubs  pennants,  but  quite  signifi- 
cant in  the  program  development  time 
frame.  If  you're  like  me,  when  you  find  a 
bug  you  want  to  type  RUN  and  verify  its 
death.  And  if  you're  like  me  it  usually 
takes  about  17  "Aha,  this  time  I've  got  it"s 
before  the  obituary  can  be  written.  Now 
17  times  18  equals  306  seconds  or  five 
minutes  of  just  sitting  staring  at  the  mon- 
itor. Multiply  that  times  74  million  {be- 
cause that's  how  many  bugs  are  in  the 
average  program  during  development), 
and  you're  getting  up  there  with  glacial 
periods. 

Why  did  the  developers  of  BeckerBA- 
SIC strap  us  with  this  three-mode  system? 
Because  what  BeckerBASIC  does  is  a 
whopping  big  amount  of  work  for  a  64K 


EDSWK 


computer.  It  keeps  GEOS  in  memory.  It 
has  to  keep  itself  in  memory.  And  it  needs 
to  keep  your  program  in  memory. 

To  juggle  these  three  balls  you  need  to 
do  some  sleight  of  hand.  BeckerB  ASIC's 
trick  is  simply  to  put  only  the  elements  of 
the  system  that  are  germane  to  the  task 
at  hand  into  memory.  Thus,  to  input  your 
program,  only  those  BeckerBASIC  com- 
mands that  are  related  to  screen  editing 
and  program  development  are  used,  leav- 
ing you  with  enough  space  to  create  a  fair- 
ly big  program. 

How  much  is  that?  If  you  don't  use  the 
hi-res  screen  you'll  have  about  24K  for  de- 
velopment and  another  20K  of  memory 
scattered  about.  If  you  decide  to  use  the 
hi-res  screen  (or  drop-down  menus  GEOS- 
style)  you  can  deduct  8K  from  that. 

The  inconvenience  is  simply  a  price 
that  has  to  be  paid  to  get  a  first-class  high- 
level  language  for  GEOS.  Is  it  worth  it? 

Yep.  BeckerBASIC  gives  you  a  whop- 
ping big  273  commands  to  work  with.  And 
many  of  these  are  as  up-to-date  as  you  can 
get.  Lots  of  programming  aids  are  avail- 
able, structured  programming  is  support- 
ed, sound  and  graphics  commands  are 
easy  and  extensive,  a  whole  gob  of  disk 
commands  are  at  your  disposal,  better 
methods  of  input  and  output  are  includ- 
ed . .  .it's  a  true  BASIC  programmer's  bo- 
nanza. My  favorite  feature  is  the  ability  to 
use  labels  instead  of  line  numbers.  Now 
instead  of  GOTO  1000  you  can  type 
GOTO  "SPRITES''  or  whatever. 

The  commands  are  very  easy  to  learn, 
particularly  if  you're  coming  over  from 
BASIC  7.0  on  the  128.  However,  you  will 
do  a  lot  of  page-flipping  as  you  go  on  your 
maiden  voyage  with  BeckerBASIC.  (In- 
teresting side  note:  the  program  allows 


you  to  change  the  names  of  any  and  all 
commands  to  suit  your  preference.  I  will 
not  do  so  in  this  or  future  columns,  be- 
cause it  would  create  confusion.  But  it  is  a 
nice  feature.) 

Oh,  by  the  way,  although  it  has  been  ad- 
vertised as  a  GEOS  utility,  BeckerBASIC 
stands  solid  on  its  own  as  an  extended 
BASIC.  You  don't  have  to  have  GEOS  to 
use  it. 

Diving  In 

Well,  we're  not  quite  ready  to  dive  in 
yet.  First,  a  word  about  the  actual  process 
of  typing  programs  in  with  BeckerBASIC. 
To  start,  double-click  the  INPUT  SYS- 
TEM icon.  Then  edit  exactly  the  same  as 
if  you  were  typing  in  a  Commodore  64  pro- 
gram. 

Save  it  before  running  it  (this  is  cru- 
cial). To  run  it,  press  the  COMMODORE 
key  and  the  CTRL  key  simultaneously 
then  follow  the  prompts. 

When  you're  sure  you've  got  it  up  and 
running  properly,  return  to  the  Input 
mode  and  save  it  again,  and  then  go  back 
to  the  GEOS  desktop,  double-click  the 
CONVERTER  icon,  and  follow  the 
prompts.  This  will  make  your  program 
"click-able." 

You  can  also  distribute  your  program  to 
folks  who  don't  happen  to  have  BeckerBA- 
SIC. You  simply  must  include  the  Run- 
Only-System  module  on  the  same  disk. 
This  is  legal.  However,  giving  away  other 
modules  is  not. 

The  program  that  we  will  cover  is  a  use- 
ful one  to  type  in.  It  will  show  you  the  45 
fill  patterns  that  are  available  for  graph- 
ics as  well  as  demonstrate  the  use  of  drop- 
down menus.  However,  if  you're  not  the 
type-in  type  or  you  don't  own  BeckerBA- 
SIC yet,  just  read  the  article.  It  should 
give  you  an  idea  of  what  BeckerBASIC  is 
all  about. 

Now,  Diving  In 

-10  GEOSONHRDEL 

GEOSON  turns  on  the  hi-res  mode. 
HRDEL  then  clears  the  hi-res  screen. 
-  20  DLOADM  "FILL.MEN" 

This  line  loads  in  the  data  for  our  drop- 
down menu,  lb  create  this  data  you  need 
to  use  a  program  on  the  BeckerBASIC 
disk  called  "Drop-down  Menu  Construc- 
tion Set."  See  the  sidebar  for  an  explana- 
tion of  how  to  use  it  (You  must  read  the 
sidebar  and  type  in  the  info  there  to  get 
this  demo  to  work. )  I  named  my  drop- 


62     AUGUST  1988 


Pumping  Geos/BeckerBASIC 

down  menu  "fill. men". 

BeckerBASIC  has  two  main  types  of 
loads:  one  is  for  data,  the  other  for  pro- 
grams. The  "M"  in  DLOADM  indicates 
data  is  being  loaded. 

As  mentioned  above,  there  are  many 
other  disk  options  like  the  ability  to  load 
and  run  a  program  (DRLOAD),  ability  to 
save  selected  lines,  and  many  more. 

—  30GD  =  14:PT=5 

These  two  variables  are  for  color  selec- 
tion. GD  will  be  for  background  color,  PT 
for  foreground. 

—  40  HRPKINT  84,7,"PRESS  BUTTON 
FOR  MENU  OPTIONS" + CHR$(0) 

This  is  your  text  command  for  hi-res 
printing.  The  first  number  (84)  is  the  hori- 
zontal starting  pixel,  and  the  second  (7)  is 
the  vertical.  Please  note:  If  you  use  a  ver- 
tical starting  point  less  than  six  the  text 
won't  print.  This  is  not  documented  in  the 
manual.  Also  note:  a  CHR$(0)  must  ter- 
minate all  hi-res  text  commands.  This  is 
documented. 

—  50  FORT = 0TO4:FORI  =  0TO8 
These  two  FOR/NEXT  loops  are  going 

to  print  five  rows  (the  T  loop)  of  boxes, 
nine  boxes  to  a  row  (the  I  loop).  Nothing 
new  here. 

—  60  :  HRBOX  1*30  +  26,T*36 + 20, 


Using  the  Drop-Down  Menu 
Construction  Set 

It  isn't  difficult  at  all  to  create  drop- 
down menus  with  BeckerBASIC.  Simply 
double-click  the  icon  from  your  GEOS 
desktop.  By  following  the  prompts  you 
should  be  able  to  design  your  menus 
quickly. 

Still,  a  few  tips  are  in  order: 

1.  The  manual  never  states  how  wide 
(in  terms  of  pixels)  each  menu  item  is. 
They  are  14  pixels  each.  Therefore,  if  you 
are  going  to  use  four  items  in  your  menu, 
you'll  need  a  bottom  Y  value  that  is  56 
pixels  greater  than  your  top  Y  value. 

2.  A  quirk  you  should  be  aware  of  oc- 
curs when  you  type  in  the  text  for  your 
menu  items.  If  you  have  any  items  more 
than  10  characters  in  length  when  you 
type  the  next  item,  the  typing  area  only 
clears  out  the  first  ten  characters.  Use  the 
spacebar  to  clear  them  out. 

I*30  +  51,T*36+41,T*9+I 

Don't  let  this  one  scare  you.  All  those 
numbers  are  merely  to  get  our  graphic 
patterns  in  the  proper  position  on  the 
screen.  HRBOX  means  hi-res  box.  You'll 


3.  The  program  allows  you  to  test  your 
menus.  That's  good.  But  if  you've  designed 
any  sub-menus,  you  may  want  to  get  back 
to  the  main  menu  after  you've  clicked  into 
a  sub-menu.  To  exit  the  sub-menu  safely, 
just  move  the  pointer  up. 

4.  Another  thing  to  beware  of:  after 
you're  done  building  your  menus,  you'll  be 
given  an  opportunity  to  review  the  data  or 
to  save  it.  If  you  want  to  recall  the  num- 
bers and  text  you've  input,  don't  choose 
save.  Instead,  go  back  through  the  process 
and  write  down  your  data. 

Why  would  you  want  to  do  that?  Well,  if 
you  want  to  publish  a  program  in  a  maga- 
zine you'll  need  to  tell  your  user  what  data 
he  needs  to  type  in  when  using  the  menu 
construction  set.  For  this  article,  input  the 
following  as  the  prompts  ask  for  them: 
24000,4,1,10,0,95,56 

Foreground  color.Background  color,  In- 
vert screen,  Quit 

NIN^,Yt2,l,45,46,100,74 

Breakjtesktop 

discover  this  isn't  exactly  a  box.  It's  a  fill 
pattern.  The  last  number  on  this  long 
string— T*9 + 1— tells  the  computer  which 
fill  pattern  to  use  (there  are  45  choices). 
Therefore,  the  first  time  through  the  loop 


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limping  Geos/BeckerBASIC 

we  will  get  pattern  0  because  T  will  equal 
0  and  so  will  I  icheck  line  50). 

—  70 :  HRFRAME  1*30  +  26,T*36 + 20, 
1*30 +  51,T*36+ 41,256 

Look  familiar?  It  should.  It's  almost  ex- 
actly the  same  as  line  60  with  these  two 
exceptions:  1)  The  command  is  now 
HRFRAME  instead  of  HRBOX.  This  will 
frame  our  boxes.  And  the  last  number — 
255 — will  cause  the  frame  to  print  with  a 
solid  line.  Had  we  chosen  any  other  num- 
ber, we  would  have  created  a  dotted  (or 
dashed)  frame. 

For  example,  the  number  170  in  binary 
is  10101010.  If  we  used  170  for  the  last 
number  on  the  frame  command  we'd  have 
gotten  a  dotted  frame.  This  technique  also 
applies  to  drawing  lines. 

—  80  HRPRINT  1*30  +  30,T*36 + 49, 
STR$(T*9+D+CHR${0l 

Another  hi-res  text  line.  What  it  does  is 
place  the  number  of  the  pattern  we  are 
looking  at  (T*9+I)  beneath  each  filled 
frame. 
-90NEXTNEXT 

'Nough  said. 
— 100  "MENU" 

Ah,  here's  one  of  those  beautiful  labels  I 
was  talking  about.  It  must  be  enclosed  in 
quotes,  but  it  doesn't  have  to  be  on  a  line 
by  itself.  If  we  ever  decide  to  GOTO  100 
we  will  just  make  it  GOTO  "MENU".  This 
is  better:  This  is  the  beginning  of  the 
main  program  loop. 
- 110  WAJTKEYA:GETA$ 

Commodore  64  programmers  will  be 
happy  for  some  of  the  improved  input 
commands.  Commodore  128  users  may 
wish  they  had  some  of  their  7.0  specialties 
(like  GETKEY).  At  any  rate,  the  first 
command  causes  the  computer  to  wait  un- 
til a  key  is  pressed,  and  the  second  then 
takes  whatever  was  pressed  and  calls  it 
A$. 

—  120  PDMENU  24095:HRGDCOL  GD: 
HRPTCOLPT 

The  PDMENU  command  transfers  con- 
trol away  from  us  and  into  GEOS.  Your 
mouse  pointer  comes  alive  and  lets  you 
point  and  click  just  as  if  it  were  a  real 
GEOS  application.  You  must  follow 
PDMENU  with  the  address  of  your  drop- 
down menu  but  that's  no  sweat . . .  when 
you  use  the  drop-down  menu  construction 
set  it'll  tell  vou  the  number  you  need  here. 

I  added  tie  HRGDCOL  (background 
color)  and  HRPTCOL  (foreground  color) 
because  during  each  menu  call,  the  colors 
get  switched  to  the  Desktop  colors.  There 
may  be  a  way  around  this,  but  I  haven't 
discovered  it  yet. 
— 130  Ml =MENUCODE(0):M2  = 


MENUCODE(l) 

After  you  return  from  a  menu  call, 
you'll  want  to  know  what  was  selected. 
MENUCODE(O)  tells  you  the  main  menu 
selection.  MENUCODE(l)  tells  the  sub- 
menu selection.  For  example,  if  the  user 
selected  the  second  item  on  the  main 
menu  and  the  third  item  of  a  sub-menu, 
Ml  would  equal  2  alter  line  130  executes 
and  M2  would  equal  3. 

—  140  IF  Ml  =  4  THEN  POPIF:  GOTO 
"DESK":ENDIF 

Whoa!  Is  this  an  IF/THEN  statement? 
Yes.  It's  a  typical  structured  IF/THEN 
statement,  and  I  don't  mind  telling  you 
that  I  hate  them.  Give  me  the  old  IF 
Ml  =  4  THEN  XXX  any  day.  Becker- 
BASIC  doesn't  allow  you  to  do  this.  You 
cannot  follow  THEN  with  a  GOTO  (or  a 
line  number)  unless  you  use  the  POPIF 
statement.  Don't  ask  me  why;  I'm  sure 
they  have  their  reasons. 

Also,  all  IF/THENs  must  be  concluded 
with  an  ENDIF,  another  source  of  irrita- 
tion to  me.  It's  true,  this  can  be  quite 
handy  because  you  can  include  several 
lines  between  the  IF/THEN  and  the  EN- 
DIF. But  why  not  allow  the  simple  one- 
line  IF/THEN  for  those  hundreds  of  cases 
when  that's  all  you  want  to  do? 

Oh  well. 
-150  ON  M2  GOSUB  "FOREGROUND", 
"BACKGROUND",  "INVERT' 

So  line  140  makes  me  mad.  Line  150 
makes  me  very  happy.  This  is  the  up  side 
of  structured  programming:  labels.  It  isn't 
hard  to  guess  that  if  M2  equals  1  (item  1 
was  selected)  we'll  go  to  a  subroutine  hav- 
ing to  do  with  foreground  colors.  And  if 
M2  equals  2  then  it's  off  to  a  "BACK- 
GROUND" subroutine. 

By  the  way,  if  you,  like  many,  don't  un- 
derstand how  to  use  the  ON/GOSUB 
statement,  it's  definitely  worth  poring 
over  your  user's  manual,  especially  if  you 
plan  to  do  much  programming  with 
menus. 
- 160  GOTO  "MENU' 

Without  labels  this  would've  read 
GOTO  100.  This  line  completes  the  main 
program  loop. 

Maybe  nows  a  good  time  to  mention 
that  the  renumbering  utility  that's  built 
into  the  input  system  doesn't  work  for 
GOTOs  that  have  a  line  number  as  its  ar- 
gument. So  take  my  advice  and  just  use 
labels.  And  while  Fm  on  the  subject,  you'll 
be  happy  to  find  out  that  you  can  use  cal- 
culated GOTOs.  In  other  words,  a  line  like 
this:  GOTO  A*15+3  is  acceptable. 
- 170  "FOREGROUND" 

Another  label. 

—  180PT=(PT-fl)AND15 


This  just  allows  you  to  cycle  the  vari- 
able PT  from  0  to  15.  Since  PT  is  used  to 
determine  foreground  color,  0  to  15  makes 
sense  (0  is  black,  1  white,  etc.). 
-190  HRPTCOLPT 

So  let's  change  the  hi-res  foreground  col- 
or to  PT. 

-200  RETURN 
-210  "BACKGROUND" 

This  is  the  "BACKGROUND"  subrou- 
tine I  was  telling  you  about. 

—  220GD  =  (GD  +  1)AND15 

This  does  the  same  thing  to  GD  that 
180  did  to  PT. 
—230  HRGDCOL  GD 

And  this  does  the  same  thing  to  the 
background  color  of  your  hi-res  screen 
that  line  190  did  to  the  foreground  color. 
-240  RETURN 

—  250  'TNVEKT 

Another  label  for  another  subroutine. 
-260HRINV 

This  command  inverts  the  entire  hi-res 
screen.  All  the  off  pixels  go  on,  all  the  on 
pixels  go  off. 

-  270  RETURN 

-  280  "DESK" 

The  last  subroutine  label. 

-  290  IF  M2  =  1  THEN  STOPENDIF 
If  sub-menu  item  1  on  the  last  menu 

item  was  selected,  we  will  stop  the  pro- 
gram. 

—  300  DESKTOP 

Here's  a  nice,  finishing  touch.  DESK- 
TOP returns  you  to  the  GEOS  desktop. 
Very  professionally. 

Closing  Thoughts 

We  have  certainly  just  scratched  the 
surface  of  BeckerBASIC  here.  In  an  up- 
coming column  I'll  publish  some  tips  on 
how  to  really  motor  with  BeckerBASIC. 

Owners  of  geo Write  Workshop  128:  if 
you've  been  unable  to  install  your  pro- 
gram and  if  you  have  a  1571  disk  drive, 
the  problem  is  easily  solved  by  simply 
clicking  the  configuration  icon  and  chang- 
ing the  drive  to  1541.  You  can  change  it 
back  after  the  program  is  installed.  This 
one  puzzled  me  for  a  long  time. 

Last  note:  Human  beings  love  to  learn 
new  things  . . .  until  they  think  they've 
mastered  something.  Then  they  fear  and 
dread  learning  new  things.  When  most  of 
us  got  our  computers  we  went  on  a  team- 
ing tear  and  wasn't  it  fun?  You  bet.  Then 
we  got  secure  in  our  knowledge  and 
stopped  learning.  Last  month  I  reported 
that  geoPublish  re-kindled  the  learning 
spirit  in  me.  This  month,  BeckerBASIC 
did  the  same. 

Get  off  your  haunches.  Learn,  baby, 
learn.  It's  fun.  fl 


64    AUGUST  1988 


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INSIDE  Q-LINK" 


by  Robert  W.  Baker 


Help  with  the 
Basics 

Explore  the  inner  workings  of  the 
Q-Link  telecommunication 
service  with  network  pro  Bob 
Baker. 


As  I  mentioned  in  the  last  column, 
there's  complete  information  about 
the  online  games  in  the  Just  For  Fun  sec- 
tion of  Q-Link.  You  can  find  much  of  the 
same  information  in  the  Members'  Online 
Guide  within  the  Customer  Service  area. 
You'll  also  find  a  lot  of  information  on  oth- 
er basic  Q-Link  functions. 

There's  plenty  of  information  about 
uploading  and  downloading  files  with 
very  basic  instructions  for  each  function. 
You  can  also  get  help  on  formatting  a 
blank  diskette,  saving  screen  text  onto 
disk,  and  more.  If  you  have  a  problem 
with  downloading  a  file,  this  is  where  you 
can  apply  for  a  credit  for  incomplete  down- 
loads. Be  prepared  to  provide  as  much  in- 
formation as  possible  about  the  incom- 
plete download.  There  are  certain  restric- 
tions on  granting  credits. 

In  the  Online  Guide's  "Connecting"  sec- 
tion you'll  find  information  that  may  be 
helpful  if  you're  experiencing  trouble  con- 
necting with  the  Q-Link  system.  There's 
information  for  SX-64  users,  help  for 
those  with  call  waiting,  instructions  on 
how  to  update  your  Q-Link  software  when 
changing  modems  or  access  numbers,  plus 
some  explanation  about  what  may  be  hap- 
pening when  you're  having  problems  on- 
line. 

Although  the  Q-Link  software  was  not 
specifically  designed  for  the  SX-64  sys- 
tem, it  generally  does  work  without  any 
problems.  The  only  problem  I've  encoun- 
tered is  the  possible  need  to  connect  a  ser- 
ial peripheral  cable  to  the  expansion  con- 
nector on  the  back  of  the  SX-64  computer. 
The  other  end  of  the  cable  should  not  be 
connected  to  any  disk  drives,  printers  or 
other  peripherals. 

There  seems  to  be  a  problem  with  some 
SX-64  units  where  the  load  of  the  extra 
cable  is  needed  for  some  software  to  func- 
tion properly  on  those  systems.  Of  the  two 
SX-64  systems  that  I've  had  over  the  past 
few  years,  one  had  this  problem  while  the 
other  did  not,  but  the  extra  cable  did  the 


«\ 


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Av 


in 


'v*     '/ 


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in 
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's, 


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h 

in         'n 


*    *  ft"      V*  =    Oy     $       S       1      *»  »         v         V 


trick.  The  Online  Guide  does  mention  the 
possible  need  to  add  this  cable. 

One  other  area  of  concern  when  using 
an  SX-64  system  to  access  Q-Link  is  possi- 
ble power  supply  problems  caused  by  at- 
taching an  external  modem  that  draws 
power  from  the  computer.  As  mentioned 
in  numerous  articles  over  the  years,  the 
power  supply  in  the  basic  SX-64  system  is 
very  marginal.  Adding  any  external  de- 
vices that  draw  power  from  the  system 
may  cause  the  supply  to  fail.  I've  seen  this 
first  hand,  and  it  can  be  an  expensive  re- 
pair. There  are  adaptors  that  allow  re- 
motely powering  the  Commodore  mo- 
dems. One  is  available  from  a  company 
online  Q-Link.  For  more  information,  con- 
tact Larry29  via  E-Mail. 

If  your  telephone  service  includes  call 
waiting,  it  normally  must  be  disabled 
when  using  your  computer  and  modem  on 
the  phone  line.  Otherwise  any  incoming 
phone  call  will  cause  your  current  connec- 
tion to  be  disrupted  or  even  disconnected. 
The  Online  Guide  indicates  that  dialing 
*70  with  a  touchtone  phone,  or  1170  with 
any  phone,  will  disable  call  waiting  with 
most  telephone  systems.  If  this  doesn't 
work,  contact  your  local  phone  company 
for  help. 

There  is  a  way  to  make  disabling  call 


waiting  automatic.  The  trick  is  to  add 
1170$  in  front  of  the  normal  access  num- 
ber that  you  use  to  connect  to  Q-Link.  You 
can  add  these  digits  to  your  access  num- 
ber using  the  Change  Access  function  on 
your  Q-Link  disk  as  explained  in  the  On- 
line Guide. 

Changing  your  access  telephone  num- 
ber is  very  simple.  Instead  of  loading  or 
booting  your  Q-Link  disk  as  normal,  load 
the  Change  Access  program  on  the  disk. 
As  a  short  cut  vou  can  simply  type: 

LOAD  "C*",8,l 
The  Change  Access  program  will  load  and 
start  automatically.  Select  the  appropriate 
function  to  change  your  calling  number, 
then  enter  the  appropriate  phone  number 
with  any  required  prefix.  If  you  are  adding 
the  numbers  to  disable  rail  waiting,  keep 
in  mind  that  they  actually  get  inserted 
after  the  first  character  of  the  access  num- 
ber that  indicates  what  network  you  are 
using.  Your  access  number  might  look 
something  like: 

+  117085551234 

The  very  first  character  of  the  access 
number  must  be  either  a  plus  sign  ( +  I, 
slash  i/l,  or  exclamation  point  (!)  to  indi- 
cate the  desired  network  to  be  used  to  ac- 
cess Q-Link.  The  dollar  sign  between  the 
1170  to  defeat  call  waiting  and  the 


66    AUGUST  1988 


nside  Q-Link/Help  with  the  Basics 

5551234  access  number  causes  the  Q- 
Link  software  to  pause  between  dialing 
the  various  digits  in  the  access  number. 
The  dollar  sign  can  be  used  to  insert 
pauses  anywhere  in  the  access  number  if 
your  phone  system  needs  extra  time  be- 
tween any  group  of  digits. 

The  proper  prefix  character  in  the  ac- 
cess number  is  essential  to  the  Q-Link 
software  so  that  the  correct  network  proto- 
col is  used  when  trying  to  access  Q-Link 
via  one  of  the  networks.  The  plus  sign  is 
used  for  Telenet,  the  slash  for  Tymenet, 
and  the  exclamation  point  for  Datapac  us- 
ers in  Canada.  Using  the  wrong  prolix 
character  will  prohibit  you  from  reaching 
Q-Link  via  the  indicated  access  number. 

While  on  the  subject  of  Access  Num- 
bers, there  is  a  pretty  complete  listing  of 
available  input  phone  numbers  available 
in  the  Online  Guide  area.  If  you're  mov- 
ing, visiting  friends  or  going  on  vacation, 
and  want  to  take  Q-Link  with  you,  check 
here  to  find  a  local  input  node  near  where 
you'll  be  going.  If  you  can't  find  anything 
listed,  call  Q-Link  Customer  Service  at 
18001 392-8200  for  help. 

For  those  using  Telenet,  there  is  an- 
other service  available  for  locating  input 
nodes  anywhere  in  the  country,  but  this  is 


not  really  associated  with  Q-Link.  Using  a 
standard  terminal  software*  package  and 
your  computer  system,  you  can  access  Tel- 
enet free  of  charge  and  get  information  on 
every  input  node  they  have  available,  as 
well  as  recent  and  upcoming  changes.  You 
can  also  call  Telenet  Customer  Service  di- 
rectly at  (800)  336-0437  if  you  need  assis- 
tance. 

To  access  the  Telenet  phone  list,  simply 
use  your  terminal  software  and  modem  to 
call  any  local  input  node,  or  their  toll-free 
network  input  node  at  (8001 424-9494. 
Unfortunately,  the  toll-free  Telenet  input 
cannot  be  used  to  access  Q-Link,  since 
there  are  extra  high  charges  generally  as- 
sociated with  using  this  input. 

When  you  are  connected  to  the  Telenet, 
network,  press  RETURN  twice,  and  you 
should  get  a  prompt  for  terminal  type: 

TERMINAL  = 

Simply  press  RETURN  again,  then  en- 
ter the  area  code  and  local  exchange  num- 
ber when  prompted.  These  numbers  are 
presumably  used  for  statistics  by  Telenet 
in  helping  to  determine  where  new  input 
nodes  should  be  located. 

After  going  through  these  steps,  you 
should  see  (a  as  a  prompt  for  input.  Now 
enter  the  word  MAIL  to  access  the  online 
electronic  mail  system  of  Telenet.  When 


prompted  for  User  Name  and  Password, 
enter  the  word  PHONES  to  both  requests. 
You  should  then  have  access  to  the  var- 
ious lists  of  input  nodes  and  system  infor- 
mation provided  by  Telenet.  From  this 
main  menu  enter  ASYNC  to  get  to  the 
listing  of  local  telephone  input  nodes  used 
for  Q-Link  service. 

Now  follow  the  simple  online  prompts  to 
see  phone  listings  by  state  or  area  code, 
As  an  alternative,  you  can  set  your  termi- 
nal software  to  capture  or  print  incoming 
text  and  then  display  the  entire  phone  list 
for  future  reference.  Anyone  using  Telenet 
will  find  this  service  extremely  handy. 

When  you're  done,  enter  QUIT  to  exit 
from  the  Telenet  phone  listing.  This  will 
take  you  back  to  the  (3  prompt,  with  the 
network  software  waiting  for  another 
command.  From  there  you  can  enter  the 
HANGUP  command  to  instruct  Telenet  to 
disconnect,  or  you  can  simply  hang  up 
from  your  end  of  the  connection. 

That's  it  for  another  month.  As  usual, 
you  can  reach  me  on  Q-Link  via  E-Mail  to 
RBAKER  if  you  have  any  questions  or 
suggestions  for  future  columns.  Reprints 
of  previous  columns  are  available  online 
in  the  News  and  Reference  section  of  CLN. 
near  my  New  Product  Information  forum. 
Hope  everyone  has  a  great  summer!      a 


64  and  128  Software  Reviews  The  Eternal 

Continued  from  page  26 
permost  in  your  mind  should  be  the  im- 
provement of  your  characters  by  getting 
better  weapons,  armor  and  items  for 
them,  as  well  as  spending  experience 
points  to  increase  skills  and  abilities. 
Items  must  either  be  bought  from  shops  in 
the  various  towns  or  recovered  from  en- 
emy creatures  after  a  battle.  After  fight- 
ing monsters  you  will  also  find  money 
with  which  you  can  buy  more  supplies  and 
useful  items. 

Explore  the  terrain,  looking  for  unusual 
places  and  characters,  and  only  stop  when 
you  make  camp,  get  tired  or  encounter  a 
group  of  monsters.  When  combat  is  neces- 
sary, attempt  to  defeat  the  enemy  as  soon 
as  possible.  After  any  battle,  you  are  auto- 
matically forced  to  make  camp.  Use  this 
time  to  examine  items  you  have  discov- 
ered on  the  monsters,  distribute  money 
that  you've  found  and  heal  any  characters 
who  may  be  bleeding  or  have  injuries  (the 
two  types  of  physical  damage).  Also,  im- 
prove any  characters  you  can  by  distribut- 
ing the  items  you  now  have.  The  next  stop 
should  be  a  town  in  which  you  can  use  the 
money  to  finance  better  equipment  and 
supplies.  By  repeating  this  process,  you 
will  stumble  upon  a  lot  of  useful  informa- 


Dagger 

tion,  explore1  the  map  and  increase  the 
usefulness  and  power  of  your  party  and 
characters. 

When  not  in  combat  a  single  icon 
stands  for  your  party  in  both  wilderness 
and  dungeons.  The  dungeons  are  interest- 
ing places  to  visit  because  of  the  unique 
challenges  that  lie  within.  Finding  a  dun- 
geon involves  searching  a  square  of  the 
map  for  tracks  that  lead  to  its  entrance. 
Unfortunately,  following  the  tracks  causes 
you  to  encounter  many  groups  of  mon- 
sters before  you  reach  the  entrance.  But 
as  you  defeat  them  there  are  fewer  and 
fewer  monsters  in  a  certain  section  of  the 
map.  Continue  to  depopulate  the  map  of 
the  monsters,  and  you'll  be  able  to  make  it 
to  the  dungeon,  well  worth  the  effort  be- 
cause of  its  contents. 

Magic  is  very  important  and  useful  in 
the  Middle  World.  Learn  the  effects  of  the 
spells  and  the  magical  items  on  monsters. 
This  information  will  be  very  valuable  to 
you  when  you  encounter  more  powerful 
creatures.  There  are  three  types  of  phys- 
ical damage  that  can  be  imparted  with 
weapons  (Cut,  Bash  and  Thrust  I  and  five 
types  of  magical  damage  (Fire,  Cold,  Life- 
Drain,  Holy  and  Electrical)  performed  by 


spells  and  magical  items.  Finding  out 
what  type  of  damage  is  most  effective 
against  an  opponent  and  which  character 
best  inflicts  that  type  is  the  key  to  defeat- 
ing the  monsters  and  winning  the  game — 
yet  another  unique  feature  of  the  game 
system. 

A  booklet  included  with  The  Eternal 
Dagger  that  discusses  everything  you 
need  to  know  about  Middle  World,  includ- 
ing specific  tips  about  how  to  play  The 
Eternal  Dagger.  This  booklet  is  just  as 
useful  as  the  instruction  manual  and  a 
necessity  for  defeating  new  monsters. 

The  Eternal  Dagger  offers  a  lot  of  enter- 
tainment with  its  seemingly  complex,  yet 
surprisingly  simple,  game  system  and 
challenges.  The  colorful  graphics  are  used 
advantageously  to  show  your  surround- 
ings and  battles.  Most  of  this  role-playing 
game  will  take  place  in  your  mind,  not  in 
front  of  your  eyes.  Yet,  what  is  on  the 
screen  is  well-done.  Expect  to  spend  a  lot 
of  time  in  completing  The  Eternal  Dagger, 
but  rest  assured  that  the  adventure 
doesn't  offer  endless  boring  battles,  but  in- 
telligent challenges  within  an  established 
game  system  in  a  brand  new  place— Mid- 
dle World.  ra 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE     67 


PROGRAMMING" 


by  Michael  L.  Lewis 


Stratahex 

for  the  Commodore  64 


Here  is  an  original  game  that  is  un- 
like most  magazine  programs.  In- 
stead of  simply  shooting  at  alien  targets 
or  trying  to  beat  the  clock,  this  is  a  strate- 
gy game  played  on  a  hexagonal  board. 
Hence,  the  name  Stratahex. 

The  object  of  the  game  is  to  get  your 
checker  to  the  other  side  of  the  board 
while  preventing  your  opponent  from  do- 
ing the  same.  After  the  title  screen  ap- 
pears, a  prompt  will  ask  "How  Many  Play- 
ers?" Enter  a  number  two  through  four  for 
the  number  of  your  choice.  Wait  approxi- 
mately 45  seconds  while  the  screen  is  be- 
ing randomly  set  up. 

At  the  bottom  of  the  screen  will  be  com- 
mand words  in  black  with  an  "Enter 
Move"  prompt  at  the  very  bottom  written 
in  the  same  color  as  the  checker  to  move. 

There  are  two  possible  commands  you 
can  use  every  round.  You  can  either  move 
or  fire  at  an  opponent.  Each  command  re- 
quires a  two-letter  combination. 

To  move,  enter  M  followed  by  one  of  the 


six  directions  at  the  bottom  of  the  screen: 

E — up  and  left 

R^up 

T — up  and  right 

C — down  and  left 

V— down 

B — down  and  right 

Notice  the  keyboard  pattern.  It  will 
help  you  get  accustomed  to  the  configura- 
tion. Be  careful  not  to  move  in  the  direc- 
tion of  a  yellow  barrier,  which  prevents 
movement  and  essentially  wastes  your 
turn. 


Another  command  at  your  disposal  is  to 
fire  at  an  opponent.  To  fire,  enter  F  fol- 
lowed by  one  of  the  six  directions  at  the 
bottom  of  the  screen.  (They  are  the  same 
as  the  move  command.)  If  your  fire  hits  an 
opponent,  he  will  be  sent  back  to  his  origi- 
nal beginning.  If  a  fire  hits  a  yellow  bar- 
rier, it  will  be  stopped  and  won't  hit  your 
opponent. 

Now  that  you're  acquainted  with  Stra- 
tahex all  you  need  to  do  is  type  it  in,  save 
it,  gather  up  one  to  three  friends,  and 
have  fun!  a 


Before  typing  thi-s  program,  read  "How  to  Enter  Programs"  and  "Horn  to  Use  tht  Magazine 
fcntry  Program  hL  The  BASIC  programs  in  this  magazine  arc  available  on  disk  from  Loadstar. 
P.0  Bos  30008,  Shrcvcport.  LA  71130-0007,  I  -800-839-2694 

Stratahex 

10  REM  ***  INITIALIZATION  ***'BUDC 

11  REM'BARX 

20  C=55296:V=1024:Y{1)=0:Y(2)=20 

: Y  (3) =11:Y(4) =10'GOCK 
25  X(1)=19:X(2)=19:X(3)=1:X(4) =39'EBJL 
30  POKE  53280, 0'BHTA 
40  POKE  53281, 4'BHYB 
50  C{1)=10:C(2)=14:C(3)=13 

:C(4)=12'ECDJ 

99  REM'BARO 

100  REM  ***  TITLE  SCREEN  ***'BREY 

101  REM'BARV 

110  PRINT  " [CLEAR, WHITE] " ; "BBIW 

120  PRINT  " [DOWN10] ";TAB( (39-17)/2) ;" 

[RVS]S  T  R  A  T  A  H  E  X[RVOFF] 

"'EKYG 
130  PRINT:PRINT  TAB( (39-2J/2) ;" (BLUE] 

BY"'FJRD 
140  PRINT:PRINT  TAB (( 39-10) /2) ;" [CYAN] 

MIKE  LEWIS"'FKQH 
150  FOR  DE=1  TO  2000 : NEXT ' E1PE 

499  REM'BARQ 

500  REM    ***     #    OF    PLAYERS    ***'BQXD 

501  REM'BARA 

510  PRINT  "  [CLEAR, BLACK] 

HOW  MANY  PLAYERS" ' BADG 


520 

530 

540 

999 

1000 

1001 

1010 


1020 

1030 
1040 
1050 
1055 
1060 
1070 
1080 

1090 
1100 
1120 
1130 

1140 


1150 
1160 

1170 
1180 


GET  AS:  IF  AS<"2"  OR  AS>"4"  THEN 

520'GKDH 

PL=VAL(AS) 'CGAE 

C (PL+1) =l:C(PL+2) =1'EPXJ 

REM'BARV 
REM  ***  SCREEN  SET  UP  ***'BRTW 
REM" BART 

PRINT  " [CLEAR, DOWN22, BLACK] " ; 
TAB(  (39-17) /2)  ; "<<<PLEASE 
WAIT>>>" ' EKCF 

FOR  CC=55296  TO  56135'DMHY 
RN=INT(RND(0) *10)+1'FKXB 
IF  RN>7  THEN  PC=7:GOTO  1055'FLUC 
PC=0'BDQY 

POKE  CC, PC: NEXT  CC ' C I  EG 
FOR  X=0  TO  39  STEP  2'EFPC 
FOR  Y=0  TO  20  STEP  2 ' EFGD 
IF  (X+2)/4=INT( (X+2)/4)  AND 
Y/2=INT(Y/2)  THEN  Y=Y-1'PVEP 
POKE  V+X+(40*Y) ,78'EKMG 
NEXT  Y:NEXT  X'CDNU 
FOR  X  =  0  TO  39  STEP  2'EFPY. 
FOR  Y=l  TO  20  STEP  2'EFHA 
IF  (X+2)/4=INT( (X+2)/4)  AND 
(Y+1)/2  =  INT(  (Y  +  l)/2)  THEN 
Y=Y-1' RCLP 

POKE  V+X+(40*Y) ,77'EKLD 
NEXT  Y:NEXT  X'CDNB 
FOR  X=l  TO  39  STEP  2'EFQE 
FOR  Y=0  TO  20  STEP  2'EFGF 


68    AUGUST  1988 


Piogiamming/Stratahex- 


1190  IF  (X+1)/4=INT( (X+1J/4)  AND 

Y/2=INT(Y/2)  THEN  Y=Y-1'PVCR 
1200  POKE  V+X+(40*Y) ,119'ELAA 
1210  NEXT  YiNEXT  X'CDNW 
1220  POKE  C+X(1)+40*Y(1) ,C(1) 

:POKE  V+X(1)+40*Y(1) ,81'IGJI 
1223  POKE  C+X(2)+40*Y(2) ,C{2) 

:POKE  V+X{2)+40*Y(2) ,81' IGOL 
1225  POKE  C+X(3)+40*Y{3) ,C(3) 

:POKE  V+X(3)+40*Y(3) ,81'IGTN 
1227  POKE  C+X(4)+40*Y(4) ,C(4) 

:POKE  V+X(4) +40*Y(4) ,81'IGYP 
1230  PRINT" [HOME,DOWN22,SPACE38] "; 

'BBDF 
1240  PRINT  " [HOME,DOWN21] 

M=MOVE  F=FIRE  E=NORTHWEST 

T=NORTHEAST" ' BAYL 
1250  PRINT  "R=NORTH  V=SOUTH 

C=SOUTHWEST  B=SOUTHEAST"' BAQL 
1499  REM'BARP 

1999  REM'BARU 

2000  REM  ***  GAME  PLAY  ***'BOSW 

2001  REM'BARU 

2005  FOR  PT  =  1  TO  PL'DFVC 
2007  G$="":P=0:PC=0'DJFF 
2010    PRINT    CHR$ (C(PT)+140) ; " [HOME, 

DOWN23] ENTER    MOVE: [SPACE4J " 'DLYE 
2020    GET    A$:IF    A$OnMM    AND    A$<>"F" 

THEN    2020' ILME 
2030    PRINT    " [HOME,DOWN23,RIGHT12] "; 

AS'BDVB 
2040    GS=G$+A$'CGAA 
2050    GET    AS'BCGA 
2055    IF    A?<>"E"AND    A$<>"R"AND 

A$<>"T"AND    A$<>"C"AND    A$<>"V"AND 

A$<>"B"THEN    2050'TQEV 
2060    PRINT    " [HOME,DOWN23,RIGHT13] " ; 

A$'BDAE 
2070    G$=G$+A$'CGAD 

2080    IF    LEFT$(G$,1)="M"    THEN    2100'EKNG 
2090    GOTO    2500'BEEE 

2099  REM'BARM 

2100  REM  ***  PLAYER  MOVE  ***'BQRY 

2101  REM'BARV 

2105  POKE  C+X(PT)+40*Y  (PT)  ,4'EPGG 
2110  G$=RIGHT$(G$,1) "CIEX 

2120  IF  G$  =  *'E"  THEN  G=1'EEPA 

2121  IF  G$="R"  THEN  G=2'EEEB 

2122  IF  G$="T"  THEN  G=3'EEHC 

2123  IF  G$="C"  THEN  G=4'EEQD 

2124  IF  G$="V"  THEN  G=5'EELE 

2125  IF  G$="B"  THEN  G=6'EERF 

2130  ON  G  GOTO  2135,2140,2150,2160, 

2170,2180'CFTE 
2135  IF  Y(PT)=0  OR  X(PT)=1 

OR(PEEK(C+{X(PT)-l)+(Y (PT)-l) *4U) 

AND  15)»7  THEN  2190'ORMV 
2137  X(PT) =X(PT)-2:Y(PT)=Y(PT)-1 

:GOTO  2190'FDCP 
2140  IF  Y(PT)<2  OR  ( PEEK (C+X ( PT) + ( Y 

(PT)-l) *40) AND  15)=7   THEN 

2190'LICN 
2145  Y(PT)=Y(PT) -2:GOTO  2190'DQKJ 
2150  IF  X(PT)=39  OR  Y(PT)=0 


2155 
2160 

2165 

2170 


2175 
2180 


2185 

2190 

2195 

2200 
2210 

2220 
2230 
2499 
2500 
2501 
2510 
2  52  0 
2540 
2550 
2560 
2570 
2580 
2590 

2600 
2602 

2605 
2610 


2615 
2620 

2625 

2626 
2630 
2635 
2650 
2652 
2655 
2660 


2665 
2670 

2675 


OR(PEEK(C+(X(PT) +1)+(Y(PT)-1)*40) 

AND  15) =7  THEN  2190'OSUS 

Y(PT) =Y(PT)-1:X(PT) =X(PT) +2 

:GGTO  2190'FDBP 

IE  X(PT)=1  OR  Y(PT)=20 

OR(PEEK(C+ (X(PT)-1)+Y(PT)*40)AND 

15) =7  THEN  2190' WPRS 

Y(PT) =Y(PT)+1:X(PT) =X(PT)-2 

:GOTO  2190 'FDBQ 

IF  Y{PT)>18  OR  (PEEK(C+X(PT)+ (Y 

(PT) +1) *40)AND  15)=7  THEN 

2190'LJEQ 

Y(PT) =Y(PT) +2:GOTO  2190'DQJM 

IF  X(PT)=39  OR  Y(PT)=20 

OR(PEEK(C+(X(PT) +1) +Y(PT) *4  0)AND 

15)=7  THEN  2190'NQAU 

Y(PT) =Y(PT)+1:X(PT) =X(PT)+2 

:GOTO  2190'FDAS 

POKE  C+X(PT)+Y(PT) *40,C(PT) 

:POKE  V+X(PT) +Y(PT) *40,81'ILWR 

IF  Y(l) =20  THEN  W=l 

:GOTO  4000'FNAO 

IF  Y(2)=0  THEN  W=2:GOTO  4000'FMCB 

IF  X(3) =39  THEN  W=3 

:GOTO  4000'FNNC 

IF  X(4)=l  THEN  W=4:GOTO  4000'FMGD 

GOTO  2960'BEOA 

REM'BARQ 

REM  ***  PLAYER  FIRE  ***'BQAD 

REM'BARA 

1  C  I  EC 

A=1'EEJE 

A=2' EEXG 

A=3'EEBH 

A=4'EEKI 

A=5'EEFJ 

A=6'EELK 
2600,2650,2700,2750, 
2800,2850'CFBO 
X=X(PT) :Y=Y(PT) *CNIE 
IF  X<2  OR  Y=0  THEN  2900'FILH 
X=X-1: Y=Y-1'EHIJ 

IF  (PEEK(C+X+Y*40) AND  15)=7  THEN 
PRINT  " [UP,RVS] <<<<BLOCKED>>>>" 
:GOTO  2900 ' KRLP 
X=X-1'CDLI 

IF  PEEK(V+X+Y*40) =81  THEN 
PC=  (PEEK(C  +  X  +  Y*40)  AND  15)'NWYP 
IF  PC>1  THEN  FOR  LO=l  TO  PL 
:IF  PC=C(LO)  THEN  P=LO'KTXS 
IF  PC>1  THEN  NEXT  LO'EFUL 
IF  PC=0  OR  PC=1  THEN  2602'FKAI 
GOTO  2900'BEIJ 
X=X(PT) :Y=Y(PT) 'CNIJ 
IF  Y<2  THEN  2900'DGIK 
Y=Y-1 'CDNM 

IF  (PEEK(C+X+Y*40)AND  15) =7  THEN 
PRINT  " [UP,RVS] <<<<BLOCKED>>>>" 
:GOTO  2900'KRLU 
Y=Y-1 'CDNN 

IF  PEEK(V+X+Y*40) =81  THEN 
PC=(PEEK(C+X+Y*40)  AND  15)'NVvYU 
It'  PC>1  THEN  FOR  LO=l  TO  PL 
:IF  PC=C(LO)  THEN  P=LO'KTXX 

Continued  on  page  90 


G$=RIGHT$(G$,1) 
IF  G?="E"  THEN 

G$="R" 

G$="T" 

G$="C" 

G$="V" 

G$="B" 

A  GOTO 


IF 
IF 
IF 
IF 

IF 
ON 


THEN 
THEN 
THEN 
THEN 
THEN 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE     6S 


PROGRAMMING 

Tempered  Fun 

for  the  Commodore  64 

From  the  time  of  Aristotle's  disciple. 
Aristoxenus,  to  the  time  of  J.  S.  Bach 
a  subject  that  often  occupied  the  best 
minds  of  musicians  and  mathematicians 
alike  was  that  of  the  temperament,  or 
tuning  of  instruments.  In  the  time  of  Bach 
the  controversy  became  especially  pro- 
nounced. The  controversy  revolved 
around  the  question  of  how  to  divide  the 
octave  into  tones  that  are  most  pleasing  to 
the  ear.  The  problem  arises  in  the  fact 
that  our  scales  (major  and  minor,  for  ex- 
ample) may  sound  good  in  one  key,  but  of- 
ten snund  quite  hideous  in  another  if  we 
use  the  tuning  that  was  advocated  by 
most  musicians  prior  to  Bach's  time.  This 
tuning,  known  as  "Just"  tuning,  is  based 
essentially  on  the  idea  that  the  fourth  ifal 
and  fifth  (sol)  tones  of  a  diatonic  scale  la 
normal  scale,  with  seven  tones  l  are  4'3 
and  3  2  the  first  idol  tone,  respectively. 
The  other  tones  of  a  scale  are  based  on 
still  other,  unequal,  ratios.  This  arrange- 
ment, because  of  reasons  that  are  far  too 
complex  to  discuss  here,  force  the  third 
diatonic  tone  to  take  on  very  interesting 
aural  characteristics.  It  is  the  third  that 
determines  the  quality  of  chords:  harmo- 
nies. In  Just  temperament,  harmonies  are 
particularly  pleasing  to  the  ear,  but  melo- 
dies and  harmonies  are  essentially  limit- 
ed to  one  key.  It  is  difficult  to  write  a  piece 
using  more  than  that  one  simple  key.  It  is 
precisely  this  limitation  that  the  dissenter 
Aristoxenus,  and  others  like  him  (includ- 
ing Bach),  wished  to  overcome. 

Aristoxenus  advocated  the  division  of 
the  octave  into  equal  parts.  In  the  equal 
temperament  of  our  day  (and  as  cham- 
pioned by  Bach)  each  tone  is  the  twelfth 
root  of  two  times  the  previous  tone,  result- 
ing in  a  chromatic  scale  of  twelve  tones  to 
the  octave.  Even  though  this  may  sound 
hopelessly  complex  mathematically,  it  is 
really  quite  simple  aurally.  The  effect  of 
this  tuning  is  that  the  fourth  and  fifth 
tones  of  a  diatonic  scale  are  very  slightly 
"mistuned."  For  all  practical  purposes, 
however,  there  is  no  difference  to  the  ear. 
Equal  temperament  also  makes  the  third 
diatonic  tone  sound  rather  sharp.  Never- 
theless the  mistuned  third  can  still  be  tol- 
erated by  most  people  (although  to  dis- 
cerning ears,  it  is  noticeable).  The  most 
positive  outcome  of  Equal  temperament  is 
the  fact  that  all  the  keys  can  now  be  used 


quite  easily,  opening  up  vast  harmonic 
and  formal  possibilities.  This  is  why  Bach 
preferred  Equal  temperament  as  opposed 
to  Just  temperament.  He  could  experi- 
ment with  a  greatly  expanded  palette  of 
sound. 

From  the  time  of  Bach  to  the  present 
the  Equal  system  of  temperament  has 
prevailed  because  of  its  greater  versatility. 
Nevertheless,  the  older  tuning  is  still  oc- 
casionally invoked  by  some  musicians  as 
more  satisfying.  It's  all  in  the  ear  of  the 
beholder  (behearer?).  I  have  written  this 
computer  program  to  introduce  you  to 
these  concepts  aurally. 

The  program  will  give  you  the  opportu- 
nity to  experiment  in  various  ways  with 
both  Just  and  Equal  temperaments.  Two 
other  temperaments  are  also  included:  Py- 
thagorean and  Mean.  Pythagorean  tun- 
ing basically  produces  an  even  sharper 
diatonic  third  than  Equal  tuning  and  is 
sometimes  advocated  by  instrumentalists 
who  are  primarily  melodists  (violinists, 
oboists,  etc.).  Mean  tuning  is  still  another 
alternative  to  Just  temperament.  It  is 
somewhat  closer  to  Just  tuning  than 
Equal  temperament. 

In  the  program  I  have  also  included  the 
primary  diatonic  scales  (modes)  of  Occi- 
dental music  (major,  minor,  Dorian.  Phyr- 
gian,  etc.).  After  you  choose  your  tempera- 
ment you  are  given  the  opportunity  to 
choose  one  of  these.  The  scale  will  be 
played  in  your  chosen  temperament.  If, 
however,  you  wish  to  hear  a  chromatic 
scale,  the  program  also  gives  you  the  op- 
portunity to  do  that.  You  will  find  the 
chromatic  scale  am  be  played  in  either 
sharps  or  flats,  which  are  not  equivalent 
in  all  tunings  except  Equal.  (C#  is  the 
same  as  Db  in  Equal  temperament,  but 
not  in  Just  temperament.) 

After  you  choose  your  temperament 
and  scale,  you  will  then  be  given  the  op- 
portunity to  experiment  with  various  ap- 


plications  of  your  tuning  and  scale.  The 
applications  you  can  choose  from  are:  Oc- 
tave .Sale.  Root  Chord.  Real-Time  Melo- 
dy, Twinkle  Twinkle  Little  Star  Melody, 
and  Twinkle  Twinkle  Little  Star  Harmo- 
nized. Remember  that  all  these  applica- 
tions will  be  played  in  your  chosen  tem- 
perament and  scale.  The  easiest  applica- 
tion in  which  to  hear  the  difference  Ix1- 
tween  the  temperaments  is  the  Root 
Chord.  You  will  hear  that  a  root  chord 
sounds  rather  more  pleasing  in  Just  tem- 
perament. This  is  because  the  middle  note 
of  the  chord,  which  is  the  diatonic  third,  is 
not  as  sharp  as  it  is  in  Equal  tempera- 
ment. 

Be  aware  that  Twinkle  Twinkle  Little 
Star  Harmonized  in  scales  other  than  ma- 
jor or  minor  will  sound  quite  strange  in- 
deed, The  peculiarities  of  scales  must  be 
taken  into  account  when  harmonies  are 
written  in  them.  Twinkle  Twinkle  Little 
Star  Harmonized  does  not  do  this— it 
plays  the  harmony  in  strict  model  trans- 
position. 

If  you  choose  the  chromatic  scale,  what- 
ever temperament,  you  will  be  able  to 
hear  only  the  octave  scale  application. 

In  the  application  titled  Real-Time 
Melody  you  will  be  able  to  play  a  tune. 
Use  the  top  row  of  the  keyboard,  numbers 
1-8.  The  number  one  corresponds  to  the 
solfege  syllable  "do."  You  can  play  the  ba- 
sic solfege  syllables  according  lo  your  cho- 
sen scale  and  temperament.  For  purists:  I 
realized  that  "re"  through  "ti"  in  scales 
other  than  major  should  be  titled  some- 
thing other  than  "re,"  etc.,  but  I  used  the 
basic  syllables  simply  as  an  aid  to  those 
who  are  not  too  fanii  liar  with  scale  struc- 
tures. Since  this  program  is  in  BASIC  you 
will  also  notice  that  there  is  a  slightly  de- 
laved  response  in  the  syllables  higher 
than  "fa." 

One  other  note:  In  Menu  1  you  are  giv- 
en the  choice  of  a  temperament  which  is 


70    AUGUST  1988 


Programming/Tempered  Fun 

very  different  from  the  others — your  own 
Equal  temperament.  The  normal  Equal 
temperament  of  our  day  is  already  built 
into  the  program.  But  with  this  option  you 
can  also  split  the  octave  into  any  number 
of  equal  segments  you  desire  (from  1  to 
1200).  When  you  take  this  option  the  pro- 
gram will  play  a  comparison  tone  (do) 
first,  and  then  proceed  to  play  the  inter- 
vals as  high  as  the  computer  will  go  (un- 
less you  terminate  it  earlier  I.  As  each  in- 


terval is  played  the  number  of  the  inter- 
val is  also  displayed.  I  find  this  to  be  a  par- 
ticularly interesting  aural  experience.  It 
is  truly  strange  to  hear  an  octave  with 
thirteen  chromatic  tones  rather  than  the 
normal  twelve!  If  you  choose  to  play  a 
scale  with  seven  equal  intervals  you  may 
be  interested  to  know  that  it  is  equivalent 
to  the  Javanese  scale  known  as  "pelog."' 
often  played  in  gamelan  orchestras.  If  you 
choose  to  play  a  scale  with  1200  equal  in- 
tervals you  will  be  playing  the  "cents" 


scale  commonly  used  in  tuning.  You  will 
be  able  to  test  your  own  pitch  discrimina- 
tion skills  with  this.  Most  people  can  hear 
the  difference  of  about  four  or  five  cents 
(intervals  number  four  and  five,  respec- 
tively). You  will  hear  a  slight  '"beating" 
between  the  comparison  tone  and  those 
intervals.  A  few  of  you,  however,  may  be 
able  to  hear  the  difference  of  two  or  three 
cents. 

Now,  as  for  my  own  temperament  preju- 
dice? I  wouldn't  dare  quarrel  with  Bach!  Q 


Btforc  typing  Ihi-  program,  read  "How  to  Knicr  Programs"  and  "How  lo  I.  >e  the  Magazine 
Kntry  Program "  The  BASIC  programs  in  this  magazine  ate  available  on  disk  from  Loadstar, 
P.O  Box  MKHIK.  Shrm-port.  LA  "MW-IHKT,  I  800-831-2694. 

Tempered  Fun 

5  CLR:RESTORE'CBWE 

6  REM  ARRAYS  FOR  TEMPERAMENTS ' BVUK 
10  DIM  EH(46) ,PH(46) , JH{46) , 

Mtl  (46)  'BCPD 
20  DIM  EL(46) ,PL(46) , JL(46) , 

ML(46) 'BCGE 
25  REM  ARRAY  FOR  SCALES 'BOAH 
30  DIM  HM (20) , LM (20) ' BNTC 
32  REM  ARRAY  FOR  REAL  TIME'BQVG 

35  DIM  AS  (8)  'BFMF 

36  GOSUB  6000: RESTORE:REM  READ  ASCII 
VALUES  FOR  REAL  TIME'DHMP 

48  POKE  53272, 23:POKE  53280, 7'CQVE 

45  REM  MENU  l'BFTG 

50  PRINT" [CLEAR, DOWN3] " 

:PRINT  TAB(6) ;" [SHFT  P,SHFT  L, 
SHFT  E,SHFT  A, SHFT  S,SHFT  E] 
[SHFT  W,SHFT  A, SHFT  I , SHFT  T] 

.  .  .  [SHFT  S,SHFT  E,SHFT  T2, 
SHFT  I, SHFT  N,SHFT  G]   [SHFT  U, 
SHFT  P]"'DECV 
60  PRINT" [DOWN] ":PRINT  TAB(12);" ( 

[SHFT  AJBOUT  14  SECS.)'"DFPJ 
70  GOSUB  5000: REM  SET  UP  ARRAYS'CQAI 
80  POKE  648,4:POKE  53281,0 
:PRINT"[L.  BLUE]";'DPNJ 
82  PRINT" [CLEAR) ":PRINT  TAB(14);" 
[SHFT  T,SHFT  E,SHFT  M,SHFT  P, 
SHFT  E,SHFT  R,SHFT  E,SHFT  D] 
[SHFT  F,SHFT  U,SHFT  N]"'DFKS 
85  PRINT  TAB(14) ;" [CMDR  T12]"'CEFS 
90  PRINT  TAB (17) ;" [SHFT  M,SHFT  E, 

SHFT  N,SHFT  U]  1" : PRI NT ' DFBL 
100  PRINT"[SHFT  I].  [SHFT  T] 

EMPERAMENTS " ' BAKA 
110  PRINT  TAB(3) ;" [RVS] 1. [RVOFF] 

[SHFT  E]QUAL'"CDUA 
120  PRINT  TAB(3) ;" [RVS] 2. [RVOFF] 

[SHFT  P]  YTHAGOREAN'"CDXD 
130  PRINT  TAB (3) ;" [RVS] 3. [RVOFF] 

[SHFT  J]UST"'CDVC 
140  PRINT  TAB (3) ;" [RVS] 4. [RVOFF] 

[SHFT  M]EAN"'CDKD 
150  PRINT  TAB(3) ; " [RVS] 5. [RVOFF] 
(SHFT 


YjOUR  OWN  EQUAL 


TEMPERAMENT'"  CDPK 


155 

160 

170 

180 

190 
200 
210 
220 
230 
240 
250 
260 

270 

271 
272 

273 

274 
280 
281 

282 

283 
284 

285 

286 
287 

288 


PRINT'BACF 
PRINT" [SHFT 
GALES'" BANF 
TAB (3) 


12] 


(SHFT  S] 

[RVOFF] 
[RVOFF] 


i]l 


[RVOFF] 
;  RVOFF 3 
RVOFF] 

;rvoff] 

DIE 

RVOFF] 


PRINT  TAB(3) ; " [RVS] 

[SHFT  M]AJOR'"CDVG 

PRINT  TAB (3) ;" [RVS] 2, 

[SHFT  M] INOR" 'CDEI 

PRINT  TAB  (3)  ; " [RVS] 3. 
[SHFT  D]ORIAN"'CDLJ 
PRINT  TAB  (3)  ; " [RVS] 4. 
[SHFT  P]HRYGIAN"'CDEB 
PRINT  TAB(3) ;" [RVS] 5. 
[SHFT  L] YDIAN"'CDRC 
PRINT  TAB  (3)  ;" [RVS] 6. 
[SHFT  M] IXOLYDIAN1 
PRINT  TAB  (3)  ;" [RVS] 7, 
[SHFT  A] EOLIAN"'CDBE 
PRINT  TAB (3) ;" [RVS] 8. [RVOFF] 
[SHFT  L]OCRIAN"'CDRF 
PRINT  TAB (3) ;" [RVS] 9. [RVOFF] 
[SHFT  CjHROMATIC  {B  OR  #)'"CDYI 
PRINT" [L.  RED, HOME, DOWN22, SHFT  E] 
NTER  NUMBER  OF  DESIRED 
TEMPERAMENT.   [L.  BLUE ] " ; ' BBBQ 
POKE  198,0:POKE  204,0:POKE  207,0 
:WAIT  198,l:POKE  204,1:GET  KS'GHVM 
TU=VAL(KS) : IF  TU=0  THEN  260'FNKK 
IF  TU=1  OR  TU=2  OR  TU=3  OR  TU=4 
THEN  PRINT  KS ; : DE= . 5 : GOSUB  7000 
:GOTO  280'NEAU 

IF  TU=5  THEN  PRINT  K$;:DE=.5 
:GOSUB  7000:GOTO  1300'HVQQ 
GOTO  260'BDHI 

PRINT" [HOME,DOWN23,SPACE38] "; 'BBUL 
PRINT" [L.  RED, HOME, DOWN23, SHFT  E] 
NTER  NUMBER  OF  DESIRED  SCALE. 
[L.  BLUE]"; 'BEAR 

POKE  198,0:POKE  204,0:POKE  207,0 
:WAIT  198,l:POKE  204,1:GET  KS'GHVP 
MO=VAL(KS) :IF  MO=0  THEN  281'FNMN 
IF  M0>=1  OR  MO<=8  THEN  PRINT  KS; 
:DE=.5:GOSUB  7000:GOTO  300'LXXU 
IF  MO=9  THEN  PRINT  KS;;DE=.5 
tGOSUB  7000:GOTO  287'HUWR 
REM  CHROMATIC  SCALE ' BOTO 
PRINT" [CLEAR, DOWN2, SHFT  T] 
HIS  FUNCTION  WILL  PLAY  A[SPACE2] 
CHROMATIC  OCTAVE  SCALE  ONLY"'BAKC 
PRINT" [DOWN2,SHFT  D] 
O  YOU  WISH  A  CHROMATIC  SCALE  ON 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE     71 


Togramming/Tempered  Fun 


289 

290 
295 


298 

299 

300 

305 
310 

320 

330 

340 

350 

360 

370 

380 

381 

382 
383 


384 
399 

400 

405 

499 

500 


501 


502 
503 
504 
506 


SHARPS  OR  FLATS?  (S/F)  " ; ' BBQC  510 

POKE  198,0:POKE  204,0:POKE  207,0       512 

:WAIT  198,l:POKE  204,1:GET  K$ ' GHVW 

IF  KSO"S"AND  KSO"F"THEN  289'HHVL     514 

IF  KS="S"THEN  PRINT  KS:DE=.5 

:GOSUB  7000:MO=9:AP=1  516 

:GOTO  400'JBSV  518 

IF  KS="F"THEN  PRINT  KS:DE=.5  519 

:GOSUB  7000:MO=10:AP=1  :>20 

:GOTO  400'JCUY  570 

REM  MENU  l'BFTP 

PRINT" [CLEAR] ": PRINT  TAB (14) ; " 

[SHFT  T,SHFT  E,SHFT  M,SHFT  P,  580 

SHFT  E,SHFT  R,SHFT  E,SHFT  D]  582 

[SHFT  F,SHFT  U,SHFT  N]"'DFKJ 

PRINT  TABC14) ; " [CMDR  T12]"'CEFL        584 

PRINT  TAB(17)  ;"  [SHFT  M,SHFT  E, 

SHFT  N,SHFT  U]  2" : PRI NT ' DFCE  599 

PRINT" [SHFT  13).  [SHFT  A]  600 

PPLICATIONS" 'BANG 

PRINT  TAB{3) ;"[RVS)1. [RVOFFJ 

[SHFT  OJCTAVE  SCALE'"CDFG 

PRINT  TAB(3) ;"(RVS)2. [RVOFF] 

[SHFT  RJOOT  CHORD'"CDLH 

PRINT  TAB(3)  ; "  [RVS] 3.  [RVOFF] 

[SHFT  RJEAL-TIME  MELODY" 'CDSJ 

PRINT  TAB{3) ;" [RVSJ4. [RVOFF]  602 

[SHFT  TJWINKLE  [SHFT  L] ITTLE  610 

[SHFT  SjTAR  (MELODY )'"  CDDP  612 

PRINT  TAB (3) ;" [RVS] 5. [RVOFF] 

[SHFT  TJWINKLE  [SHFT  L] ITTLE  614 

[SHFT  S]TAR  ( HARMONI ZED) " 'CDWR 

PRINT" [L.  RED, HOME, DOWN22, SHFT  E]      616 

NTER  NUMBER  OF  DESIRED 

APPLICATION.  [L.  BLUE] " ; ' BBNT  620 

POKE  198,0:POKE  204,0:POKE  207,0 

:WAIT  198,l:POKE  204,1;GET  KS'GHVP 

AP=VAL(K$) :IF  AP=0  THEN  380'FNPN 

IF  AP=1  OR  AP=2  OR  AP=3  OR  AP=4       622 

OR  AP  =  5  THEN  PRINT  KS;:DE=.5  660 

:GOSUB  7000:GOTO  400'PHNA  67 

GOTO  380'BDKK 

REM  PRIMARY  PIVOT  POINT'BRGU 

ON  MO  GOSUB  5330,5350,5370,5390,      680 

54 10, 54 30, 54 50, 54 70, 54 90, 5 5 10' CBDJ 

ON  AP  GOTO  500,600,700,900, 

1100 'CWTI 

REM  OCTAVE  SCALE1 BLJT  >84 

PRINT" [CLEAR, DOWN2 , RIGHT6 , SHFT  H, 

SHFT  E,SHFT  R,SHFT  E,SHFT  SPACE,      699 

SHFT  I, SHFT  S,SHFT  SPACE, SHFT  Y, 

SHFT  0,SHFT  U,SHFT  R,SHFT  SPACE, 

SHFT  0,SHFT  C,SHFT  T,SHFT  A, 

SHFT  V,SHFT  E,SHFT  SPACE, SHFT  S, 

SHFT  C,SHFT  A, SHFT  L,SHFT  E] 

!"'BASU 
PRINT" [DOWN] ( [SHFT  P]RESS  < 
[SHFT  S,SHFT  P,SHFT  A, SHFT  C, 
SHFT  E]   [SHFT  B,SHFT  A, SHFT  R] 
>  TO  END  EARLY.) '"BANN  711 

GOSUB  2000'BEDC  712 

REM  PLAY  OCTAVE ' BK JF 
IF  NO=13  THEN  510'DHWG 
FOR  1=8  TO  15:GOTO  512'EIZJ 


FOR  1=8  TO  20'DEKC 

POKE  SI,LM(I) :POKE  SI+1,HM(I) 

:REM  PITCHES ' EBOL 

POKE  SI+4,17:REM  WAVEFORM  GATE  #1 

ON'DXFL 

DE=1: GOSUB  7U00;REM  DURATION ' DRPM 

POKE  SI+4,16:REM  GATE  #1  OFF'DQNN 

GET  KS:IF  KS  =  "  "THEN  570'EINN 

NEXT'BAEB 

GOSUB  8000:PRINT:PRINT 

:PRINT"[SHFT  D]0  YOU  WISH  TO  HEAR 

IT  AGAIN?  (Y/N)  " ; 'EIYT 

GOSUB  3900'BENI 

IF  KS="N"THEN  PRINT  K$:DE=.5 

:GOSUB  7000:GOTO  80'HRIR 
PRINT  K$:DE=.5:GOSUB  7000 

:GOTO  500'EQWQ 
REM  ROOT  CHORDS'BKYU 
PRINT" [CLEAR, DOWN2) " 
:PRINT" [RIGHTS, SHFT  H,SHFT  E, 
SHFT  R,SHFT  E,SHFT  SPACE, SHFT  I, 
SHFT  S,SHFT  SPACE, SHFT  Y,SHFT  0, 
SHFT  U,SHFT  R,SHFT  SPACE, SHFT  R, 
SHFT  02, SHFT  T,SHFT  SPACE, SHFT  C, 
SHFT  H,SHFT  0,SHFT  R,SHFT  D, 
SHFT  SPACE] ! "'CBPV 
GOSUB  2000'BEDD 

POKE  SI,LM(8) :POKE  S I + 1 , HM (8) * DSTH 
POKE  SI+7,LM(10) :POKE  SI+8, 
HM(10) 'EVBK 

POKE  SI+14,LM(12) : POKE  SI+15, 
HM(12) 'EXWM 

POKE  SI+4,17:POKE  SI+11,17 
:POKE  SI+18,17'GWVvP 

PRINT:PRINT" [SHFT  P] RESS  <[SHFT  S, 
SHFT  P,SHFT  A, SHFT  C,SHFT  E] 
[SHFT  B,SHFT  A, SHFT  R] 
>  TO  CONTINUE." ; ' CCMQ 
GET  KS:IF  KSO"  "THEN  622'FIJJ 
GOSUB  8000'BEJH 

PRI NT: PRI NT: PR I  NT: PRI NT" [SHFT  D] 
0  YOU  WISH  TO  HEAR  IT  AGAIN? 
(Y/N)  ";'EERT 
GOSUB  3900'BENJ 
IF  KS="N"THEN  PRINT  KS:DE=.5 
:GOSUB  7000-.GOSUB  8000 
:GOTO  30'IWBT 
PRINT  KS:DE=.5:G0SUB  7000 
:GOTO  600' EQXR 
REM  REAL  TIME  PLAY'BMYW 
PRINT" [CLEAR, D0WN2 , RI GHT1 3 , SHFT  P, 
SHFT  L,SHFT  A, SHFT  Y]   [SHFT  A] 
[SHFT  T,SHFT  U,SHFT  N,SHFT  E] 

!  '"BAHL 
PRINT" [DOWN] ( [SHFT  P] 
RESS  THE  NUMERIC  KEYS  FOR  THE 
INDICATED  SOLFEGE  DEGREE .)'"  BAYS 
FOR  X=0  TO  4:PRINT" [DOWN] " ; 
:NEXT'FGJG 

PRINT" [RIGHTS] "'BADE 
PRINT" [RIGHT8, CMDR  K,SHFT 
SHFT  0,CMDR  H,SHFT  R,SHFT 
CMDR  H,SHFT  M,SHFT  I, CMDR 
SHFT  F,SHFT  A, CMDR  H,SHFT 


D, 
E, 
H, 

S, 


72    AUGUST  1988 


Programming/Tempered  Fun" 


SHFT  0,CMDR  H,SHFT  L,SHFT  A, 
CMDR  H,SHFT  T,SHFT  I,CMDR  H, 
SHFT  D,SHFT  0,CMDR  K]"'BAJY 

713  PRINT" [RIGHT8,CMDR  K]  1 [CMDR  H]  2 
[CMDR  H]  3 [CMDR  H]  4 [CMDR  H]  5 
[CMDR  Hj  6  [CMDR  II]  7  [CMDR  H]  8 
[CMDR  K] "'BAYP 

714  PRINT" [DOWN8, SHFT  P]RESS  <[SHFT  S, 
SHFT  P,SHFT  A, SHFT  C,SHFT  E] 
[SHFT  B,SHFT  A, SHFT  R] 

>  TO  END  THIS  SECTION ."' BAOV 
760  GOSUB  2000'BEDI 

770  GET  KS:IF  KS=""THEN  770'EIIM 

780  K=ASC(KS) 'CFFL 

790  IF  K=32  THEN  GOSUB  8000 

:GOTO  80'FKUP 
800  I=0'BCRD 
805  IF  K=AS(I)THEN  POKE  SI,1 

:POKE  SI+l,l'GQUO 
810  POKE  SI+4,16:IF  K=AS(I)THEN  POKE 

SI,LM(I+8) :POKE  SI+l,HM(I+8) 

:POKE  SI+4,17'MPTU 
815  GOTO  770'BDNJ 
820  I=I+1'CDFG 
830  IF  I<=8  THEN  805'EFFI 
840  GOTO  770'BDNH 

899  REM  TWINKLE  STAR  MELODY'BRBA 

900  PRINT" [CLEAR, DOWN2 , RIGHT6 , SHFT  T, 
SHFT  H,SHFT  I, SHFT  S]   [SHFT  I, 
SHFT  S]   [SHFT  T,SHFT  W,SHFT  I, 
SHFT  N,SHFT  K,SHFT  L,SHFT  E] 
[SHFT  S,SHFT  T,SHFT  A, SHFT  R) 
(SHFT  M,SHFT  E,SHFT  L,SHFT  0, 
SHFT  D,SHFT  Y]   !"'BAYY 

905  PRINT" [DOWN] ( [SHFT  P] RESS  < 

[SHFT  S,SHFT  P,SHFT  A, SHFT  C, 
SHFT  E]   [SHFT  B,SHFT  A, SHFT  R] 

>  TO  END  EARLY. ) " ' BANV 
910  GOSUB  2000'BEDF 

920  RL=1000:GOSUB  11000'CMBI 

924  FOR  1=1  TO  172'DFJL 

925  IF  D=-l  THEN  960'EFMN 

926  POKE  SI+4,16:GOSUB  1200 
: GOSUB  1220'EQKQ 

927  GET  K$:IF  KS  =  "  "THEN  960'EIQQ 

928  WEXT'BAEN 

960  GOSUB  2000'BEDK 

970  PRINT: PRINT" [SHFT  D] 

0  YOU  WISH  TO  HEAR  IT  AGAIN? 

(Y/N)  "; 'CCBV 
980  GOSUB  3900'BENM 
982  IF  KS="N"THEN  PRINT  K$:DE=.5 

:GOSUB  7000:D=0:GOSUB  8000 

:GOTO  80'JAQY 
984  PRINT  K$:DE=.5:G0SUB  7000:D=0 

:GOTO  900'FTQW 

999  REM  TWINKLE  STAR  DATA'BPBB 

1000  DATA  1,8,8,1,1,8,8,1,1,12,8,3,1, 
12,8,3,1,13,8,4,1,13,8,4,2,12,8, 
3'BKCE 

1010  DATA  1,11,8,2,1,11,7,5,1,10,9,6, 
1,10,8,6,1/9,8,4,1,9,7,5,2,8,3, 

l'BJHF 
10  20  DATA  1,12,8,3,1,12,8,3,1,11,8,2, 


1030 


1040 


1050 


1060 
1099 
1100 


1105 


1110 
1120 
1130 
1140 
1150 


1152 
1155 

1160 


1162 
1164 


1166 

1199 

1200 
1210 
1219 

1220 
1230 
1235 
1240 
1250 
1259 

1260 


1265 
1270 
1280 
1290 


1,11,7,2,1,10,8,1,1,10,8,3,2,9,7, 

5'BLLG 

DATA  1,12,8,3,1,12,8,3,1,11,8,2, 

1,11,7,2,1,10,8,1,1,10,8,3,2,9,7, 

5'BLLH 

DATA  1,8,8,1,1,8,8,1,1,12,8,3,1, 

12,8,3,1,13,8,4,1,13,8,4,2,12,8, 

3'BKCI 

DATA  1,11,8,2,1,11,7,5,1,10,9,6, 

1,10,8,6,1,9,8,4,1,9,7,5,2,8,3, 

1'BJHJ 

DATA  -1,0,0,0'BITA 

REM  TWINKLE  STAR  HARMONIZED ' BVPR 

PRINT" [CLEAR, D0WN2 , RIGHT4 , SHFT  T, 

SHFT  H,SHFT  I, SHFT  S]   [SHFT  I, 

SHFT  S]   [SHFT  T,SHFT  W,SHFT  I, 

SHFT  N,SHFT  K,SHFT  L,SHFT  E] 

[SHFT  S,SHFT  T,SHFT  A, SHFT  R] 

[SHFT  H,SHFT  A, SHFT  R,SHFT  M, 

SHFT  0,SHFT  N,SHFT  I, SHFT  Z, 

SHFT  E,SHFT  D]  ! " 'BAJS 

PRINT" [DOWN] ( [SHFT  P] RESS  < 

[SHFT  S,SHFT  P,SHFT  A, SHFT  C, 

SHFT  E]  [SHFT  B,SHFT  A, SHFT  R] 

>  TO  END  EARLY.) "'BANM 

GOSUB  2000'BEDV 

RL=1000:GOSUB  11000'CMBY 

FOR  1=1  TO  172'DFJY 

IF  D=-l  THEN  1160' EGDB 

POKE  SI+4,16:POKE  SI+11,16 

:POKE  SI+18,16:GOSUB  1200 

:GOSUB  1260' IHUK 

GET  K$:IF  KS  =  "  "THEN  1160 ' EJHF 

NEXT'BAEE 

D=0:GOSUB  2000:PRINT 

: PRINT" [SHFT  D]0  YOU  WISH  TO 

HEAR  IT  AGAIN?  (Y/N)  " ; ' EKDO 

GOSUB  3900'BEND 

IF  KS="N"THEN  PRINT  KS:DE=.5 

:GOSUB  7000:D=0:GOSUB  8000 

:GOTO  80'JAQP 

PRINT  KS:DE=.5:G0SUB  7000:D=0 

:GOTO  1100'FUHN 

REM  READ  TWINKLE  STAR  DATA ' BTDS 

READ  D,R1,R2,R3'BKSW 

RETURN 'BAQV 

REM  REM  POKE  TWINKLE  DATA  FOR 

MELODY'BCNN 

P1=LM(R1) :P2=HM(R1) 'CRSC 

POKE  SI, PI: POKE  SI+1,P2'DMNC 

POKE  SI+4,17'CGOF 

DE=.45*D:GOSUB  7000'DLED 

RETURN' BAQA 

REM  REM  POKE  TWINKLE  DATA  FOR 

HARMONY 'BDWR 

P1=LM(R1) :P2=HM(R1) :P3=LM(R2) 

:P4=HM(R2) :P5=LM(R3) 

:P6=HM(R3) 'GDJR 

POKE  SI, PI: POKE  SI+1,P2'DMNK 

POKE  SI+7,P3:POKE  SI+8,P4'ENSH 

POKE  SI+14,P5:POKE  SI +15 , P6 ' EPI J 

POKE  SI+4,17:POKE  SI+11,17 

:POKE  SI+18,17*GWWM 

Contin  tied  on  page  89 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE    73 


PROGRAMMING' 


Magazine 

Article 

Cataloger 

for  the  Commodore  64 


You're  working  on  a  great  program  and 
come  across  an  almost  unsolvable 
problem.  Just  as  you  are  about  to  give  up. 
you  remember  seeing  a  program  in  one  of 
your  magazines  that  does  just  what  you 
need.  There  is  just  one  problem,  you  can't 
remember  which  magazine  it  was  in.  Dis- 
appointment sets  in  when  you  look  at  the 
large  pile  of  magazines  sitting  in  the  cor- 
ner. Sure,  you  could  look  through  each 
one,  but  that  would  take  hours.  If  you  only 
had  a  clue  as  to  where  it  was.  Now  Maga- 
zine Article  Cataloger  gives  you  that  clue. 

Getting  Stalled 

The  first  thing  you  should  do  is  type  in 
the  program  and  save  it  to  disk.  If  you 
plan  on  cataloging  a  lot  of  articles,  I  sug- 
gest you  put  Cataloger  on  its  own  disk. 

The  Main  Menu  confronts  you  with 
nine  diiferent  options,  The  first  six  are 
used  when  searching  the  catalog.  Follow- 
ing is  an  explanation  of  what  each  option 
does. 

Options  one  through  six  are  more  or 
less  the  same,  the  only  difference  is  the 
thing  being  searched  for.  When  you  are 
asked  what  to  search  for,  you  don't  have  to 
type  the  entire  name.  This  is  useful  when 
searching  for  an  article  with  an  extremely 
long  name.  A  bonus  when  doing  this  is 
that  the  program  will  find  every  occur- 
rence of  what  you  typed.  In  other  words, 
say  you  want  to  list  all  articles  by  John 
Public  and  John  Doe.  Entering  John  at 
the  prompt  for  the  author's  name,  and 
presto!  all  the  articles  by  John  Public  and 
John  Doe  are  listed  along  with  ever}'  other 
John  in  the  catalog.  This  feature  works  for 
all  the  other  searching  methods.  If  you  are 
ever  in  doubt  of  what  to  do,  just  follow  the 
instructions  on  the  screen. 

When  a  match  is  found,  the  data  will  be 
displayed  on  your  screen,  and  you  will  be 
presented  with  three  different  options. 
Pressing  C  will  cause  the  program  to 
search  for  another  match.  Pressing  P  will 
send  a  hard  copy  to  your  printer  (Be  sure 
your  printer  is  set  and  on  before  hitting  P. '  I 
Pressing  Q  will  stop  the  search  and  return 


GORDON  KIBBEE 


you  to  the  Main  MENU. 

When  option  seven  is  chosen  the  pro- 
gram will  prompt  you  to  enter  the  name  of 
the  magazine,  date,  article  name,  etc.  Be 
sure  that  you  enter  all  data  the  same  way 
for  each  article.  When  entering  MONTH' 
YEAR  use  the  name  of  the  month,  i.e., 
December/ 1987.  This  makes  it  easier 
when  searching  the  catalog.  When  enter- 
ing the  subject  of  the  article,  I  use  categor- 
ies like:  Game,  Utility,  Review,  Feature, 
or  Misc.  You  don't  have  to  use  these,  you 
can  use  whatever  you  want.  Just  remem- 
ber what  you  used  and  be  consistent. 

When  entering  data  for  a  review,  enter 
the  author  and  the  name  of  the  company 
that  published  the  program  being  re- 
viewed. This  way  it  is  easier  to  find  the  re- 
view by  typing  the  company  that  made 
the  program. 

After  you  are  finished  typing  the  data 
for  an  article,  you  will  be  asked  if  it  is  cor- 
rect. If  you  answer  N,  then  you  will  be 
prompted  to  re-enter  the  data.  If  you  an- 
swer Y,  then  you  will  be  asked  if  you  want 
to  add  more  data.  A  Y  will  start  the  whole 
process  over.  An  N  will  save  your  data  and 
restart  the  program. 

Option  eight  allows  you  to  edit  the  cata- 
log. After  you  choose  this  option  the 
screen  will  show  the  data  for  the  first  arti- 
cle in  the  catalog.  If  you  wish  to  edit  it  hit 
the  E  key.  Pressing  C  will  continue 


searching  the  catalog,  and  Q  will  save  the 
catalog  and  return  you  to  the  Main  Menu. 

When  you  edit  an  article,  a  blinking 
cursor  will  appear  over  the  first  data  item. 
Type  over  the  old  data  completely,  do  not 
leave  any  unwanted  data  to  the  right  of 
what  you  just  typed.  The  same  rules  apply 
here  as  they  do  when  entering  data  for  the 
first  time.  DO  NOT  enter  more  than  one 
line  of  data.  If  you  do,  you  will  mess  up  the 
rest  of  your  data.  The  only  exception  is 
when  entering  comments,  which  can  be 
two  full  screen  lines. 

After  you  are  finished  editing,  the  data 
will  be  re-displayed.  If  you  made  a  mis- 
take, just  hit  E  and  re-edit  the  data. 

Option  nine  will  end  the  program  if  you 
enter  Y  at  the  prompt,  otherwise  you  will 
be  returned  to  the  Main  Menu. 

Final  Notes 

To  speed  up  the  searches,  all  the  data  is 
kept  in  BASIC  arrays  that  are  defined  in 
line  30.  As  written  the  program  can  hold 
500  different  articles.  If  you  need  more 
room,  redefine  the  variable  X  in  line  30  to 
a  number  higher  than  500,  then  save  a 
new  copy  of  the  program.  If  vou  get  an 
OUT  OF  MEMORY  ERROR?  change  X  to 
a  smaller  number.  If  you  need  more  space, 
change  the  name  of  the  catalog  file  in  the 
program  to  something  else. -It  doesn't  mat- 
ter what,  just  so  the  name  is  less  than  16 


74     AUGUST  1988 


Programming/Magazine  Article  Cataloger' 


characters  and  a  file  does  not  exist  on  the 
same  disk  with  the  same  name.  When  do- 
ing this,  you  must  change  the  name  in 
lines  60. 1030  and  1040.  Then,  resave  the 
program  under  a  different  name. 


Finally,  Magazine  Article  Cataloger 
does  not  have  to  be  used  exclusively  as  an 
article  cataloger.  With  a  few  changes,  the 
program  can  be  used  to  catalog  anything 
from  records  and  tapes  to  video  cassettes 


and  computer  disks  or  just  about  any- 
thing else  you  can  think  of.  So  the  next 
time  you  can't  find  that  article  or  review, 
all  you  have  to  do  is  load  up  Magazine  Ar- 
ticle Cataloger  and  let  it  do  its  magic.    Qj 


Bcfuri'  lyjirng  this  program,  «-j<i  "How  lu  Enter  Programs"  and  "How  to  l"«;  ilu-  Magazine 
Entry  Program  "  The  BASIC  programs  in  this  magazFrie  are  available  nu  di*!*  from  Loadstar, 
P.O. BOs  30008,  Shrcrcpdrt.  LA  7U3000Q"',  I -800-831  -2694. 


10 

20 

30 
40 

50 
60 
70 
80 


90 

100 

110 

120 


130 


.1  3  5 


140 


145 


150 


160 


170 

180 

190 

200 
210 
220 


230 


240 


Magazine  Article  Cataloger 

■  SETUP  -'BHVY 
53281, 0:POKE  53280, 

YELLOW,  DOWNH 


REM 

POKE 

: PRINT" [CLEAR 

"TAB  (14)CHRS (14) "WORKING" 'FXMJ 

CLR:DIM  EF,E$,T,S,AS,A,OA,Q,EC,KE$, 

KE,MS$,FE'CMSI 

X=500:SS=CHRS (13) :DIM  MTS(X), 

MIS(X) ,MAS(X) ,MPS (X) ,AAS(X) ,AT$(X) , 

MCS(X) 'EKIP 

PRINT  TAB (12)  "  [WHITE, DOWN2, SHFT  L] 
OADING  CATALOG.  ..  "'CDJI 
OPEN  15,8,15:OPEN  2,8,2,"0 
: — CATALOG- -,S,R" 'COBK 
COSUB  90: IF  EF062  THEN  GOTO 
1120'GLGJ 

CLOSE  2:MSS  =  " [DOWN, SHFT  C,SHFT  R, 
SHFT  E,SHFT  A, SHFT  T,SHFT  E] 
[SHFT  N,SHFT  E,SHFT  W]   [SHFT  C, 
SHFT  A, SHFT  T.SHFT  A, SHFT  L,SHFT  O, 
SHF'i  GJ":GOTO  720'DJPU 
INPUT#15,EF,E$,T,S: RETURN' CNCI 
REM  -  MAIN  MENU  -'BKQX 
GOSUB  1470* BENW 
PRINT  TAB(15)  "  [DOWN2,SHFT  M, 
SHFT  A, SHFT  I, SHFT  N]   [SHFT  M, 
SHFT  E,SHFT  N,SIiFT  U,DOWN3]" 
; PRINT" [YELLOW, SPACE2] 1,  [SHFT  C] 
HOOSE  BY  NAME  OF  MAGAZ INE" ' DEWP 
PRINT" [SPACE2] 2.   [SHFT  C] 
HOOSE  BY  MONTH/YEAR"' BAKF 
PRINT" [SPACE2] 3.  [SHFT  C] 
HOOSE  BY  NAME  OF  ARTICLE" ' BAJL 
PRINT" [SPACE2] 4.  [SHFT  C] 
HOOSE  BY  AUTHOR'S  NAME"'BABH 
PRINT" [SPACE2] 5.  [SHFT  C) 
HOOSE  BY  ARTICLE  SUBJECT" ' BAUM 
PRINT" [SPACE2J6.  [SHFT  C] 
HECK  ALL  ENTRIES": PRINT" [SPACE2] 
7.   [SHFT  AJPPEND  TO  CATALOG" ' CBLN 
PRINT" [SPACE2] 8.   [SHFT  E] 
UIT  CATALOG" : PRINT" [SPACE2] 9 . 
[SHFT  Q]UIT"'CBSJ 
INPUT" [DOWN3,UP, WHITE, SPACE2, 
SHFT  EJNTER  CHOICE  { 1- 9 )  " ; KES ' BETJ 
IF  KES<"l"OR  KE$>"9"THEN  GOTO 
100'GJBJ 

KE=VAL(KES) :ON  KE  GOTO  200,280, 
360, 4 4 0,5 20, 6 00, 700, 8 30, 63 0'EUOP 
REM  -  NAME  OF  MAGAZINE  - ' BQJA 
GOSUB  1470' BENX 
PRINT  TA3(7)  "  [DOWN2,SHFT  S] 
EARCH  BY  NAME  OF  MAGAZINE" 
:Q=0'DFWI 

INPUT" [DOWN2, WHITE, SHFT  NJ 
AME  OF  MAGAZINE [BLUE] ";TM$ 
GOSUB  1480'BEOB 


BEEF 


250 
260 

270 
280 
290 
300 

310 

320 
330 
340 

350 
360 
370 
380 

390 

400 
410 
420 

430 
440 
450 
460 

470 

480 
490 
500 

510 
520 
530 
540 

550 

560 

570 
580 

590 
600 

610 

620 

630 

640 
650 

660 


Q=Q+1:IF  Q>A  THEN  1490'FKVG 
IF  LEFTS(MTS(Q) ,LEN(TMS) } 
OTMSTHEN  240'GURK 
GOSUB  1500:GOTO  240'CIVF 
MONTH/YEAR  - ' BMGH 
147U'BENG 

TAB(9) " [DOWN2,SHFT  S] 
BY  MONTH/YEAR":Q=0'DFDG 
[DOWN2, WHITE, SHFT  M] ONTH/ 
BEFD 


REM  - 

GOSUB 

PRINT 

EARCH 

INPUT" 

[SHFT  Y]EAR",-TM$' 

GOSUB  14  80 'UEOA 

Q=Q+1:IF  Q>A  THEN  1490'FKVF 

IF  LEFT? (MI$ (Q) , LEN (TMS) ) 

<>TM$THEN  320'GUFJ 

GOSUB  1500:GOTO  320'CIUE 

NAME  OF  ARTICLE  -*BPMH 
1470'BENF 

TAB(13) " [DOWN2,SHFT  S] 
BY  NAME  OF  ARTICLE" : Q=0 ' 
[DOWN2, WHITE, SHFT  Nl 


REM  - 

GOSUB 

PRINT 

EARCH  BY  NAME  OF  ARTICLE" : Q=0 ' . 

INPUT" 

AME  OF  ARTICLEfBLUE] ";TMS'BEGM 

GOSUB  1480'BEOY 

Q=Q+1:IF  Q>A  THEN  14  90 'FKVE 

IF  LEFTS (MAS (Q) , LEN (TMS) ) 

OTMSTHEN  400'GUVI 

GOSUB  1500:GOTO  400'CITD 

REM  -  AUTHOR'S  NAME  -'BOLG 

GOSUB  1470'BENE 

PRINT  TAB  (8) " [DOWN2] 

SEARCH  BY  AUTHOR'S  NAME" : Q=0 ' DFTN 

INPUT" [DOWN2, WHITE, SHFT  A] 

UTHOR'S  NAME[BLUE] ";TM$'BEDK 

GOSUB  1480'BEOH 

Q=Q+1:IF  Q>A  THEN  1490'FKVM 

IF  LEFTS (AAS (Q) , LEN (TMS) ) 

OTMSTHEN  480'GURH 

GOSUB  1500:GOTO  480'CICC 

REM  -  ARTICLE  SUBJECT  - ' BQCF 

GOSUB  1470'BEND 

PRINT  TAB (8) " [DOWN2,SHFT  S] 

EARCH  BY  ARTICLE  SUBJECT" : Q=0 ■ DFJN 

INPUT" [DOWN2, WHITE, SHFT  A] 


RTICLE  SUBJECT[BLUE] ";TM$'BEPK 

GOSUB  1480'BEOG 

Q=Q+1:IF  Q>A  THEN  1490'FKVL 

IF  LEFTS(ATS(Q) ,LEN(TM$) ) 

OTMSTHEN  560'GUKP 

GOSUB  1500:GOTO  560'CIBK 

Q=0:REM  -  SEARCH  ENTIRE  LIST 

-'CVPH 

Q=Q+1:IF  Q>A  THEN  1490'FKVG 

PRINT" [CLEAR] ":GOSUB  1170 

:GOSUB  1250:GOTO  610'EOPH 

REM  -  QUIT  -'BGSF 

GOSUB  1470'BENF 

PRINT  TAB (18) " [DOWN2,SHFT 

UIT" *CDHI 

PRINT  TAB(13) " [DOWN2,SHFT 


Q] 

A] 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE     75 


Programming/Magazine  Article  Cataloged 


RE  YOU  SURE [BLUE] ";: INPUT  KES'DIYN 
670  IF  LEFTS(KE$,l)="Y"OR  LEFT$(KES, 

1)="[SHFT  Y]"THEN  696'HRIQ 
680  GOTO  100'BDAJ 
690  POKE  53281, 6:POKE  53280,14 

:PRINT" (CLEAR, L.  BLUE]" 

:PRINT  CHRS(142) :END'GYHS 
700  REM  -  APPEND  TO  CATALOG  -'BRMG 
710  MSS=" [DOWN, SHFT  A,SHFT  P2,SHFT  E, 

SHFT  N,SHFT  D]  [SHFT  T,SHFT  0, 

SHFT  SPACE, SHFT  C,SHFT  A, SHFT  T, 

SHFT  A, SHFT  L,SHFT  0,SHFT  G] " 

:A=0A'CHIR 
720  GOSUB  1470:PRINT  TAB(11)MSS 

:A=A+1'FPCJ 
730  PRINT" [DOWN2, YELLOW, SHFT  L] 

NTER  NAME  OF  MAGAZ INE : [GREEN] " 

: INPUT  MTS(A) 'CHJO 
740  PRINT" [DOWN, YELLOW, SHFT  E] 

NTER  MONTH/YEAR: [GREEN] " 

:INPUT  MIS(A) 'CHQN 
750  PRINT" [DOWN, YELLOW, SHFT  E] 

NTER  TITLE  OF  ARTICLE: [GREEN ] " 

:INPUT  MAS (A) 'CHXQ 
760  PRINT" [DOWN, YELLOW, SHFT  E] 

NTER  PAGE  OF  ARTICLE : [GREEN ] " 

: INPUT  MPS (A) "CHRQ 
770  PRINT" [DOWN, YELLOW, SHFT  E] 

NTER  AUTHOR'S  NAME : [GREEN] " 

: INPUT  AA$(A) 'CHKR 
780  PRINT" [DOWN, YELLOW, SHFT  E] 

NTER  ARTICLE  SUBJECT: [GREEN ] " 

: INPUT  AT$ (A) 'CHRT 
790  PRINT" [DOWN, YELLOW, SHFT  E] 

NTER  COMMENTS  ON  ARTICLE : [GREEN] " 

: INPUT  MCS(A) 'CHIV 
800  INPUT" [DOWN, YELLOW, SHFT  I] 

S  THIS  CORRECT" ;KES 

:IF  KE$<>"Y"THEN  A=A-1 

:GOT0  720'IPHQ 
810  INPUT" [DOWN, SHFT  M] ORE  DATA";KES 

:IF  KESO"N"THEN  720'FLEL 
820  GOSUB  1020:RUN'CFUG 
830  REM  -  EDIT  CATALOG  -"BNKJ 
84  0  Q=0:HM$=" [HOME , DOWN6 ] " ' CGFJ 
850  GOSUB  1470:PRINT  TAB (15) " [DOWN, 

SHFT  E,SHFT  D,SHFT  I, SHFT  T] 

[SHFT  C,SHFT  A, SHFT  T,SHFT  A, 

SHFT  L,SHFT  0,SHFT  G]":Q=Q+1 

: IF  Q>A  THEN  990'ISTY 
860  GOSUB  1170:POKE  781,24:POKE  782,2 

:SYS  65520'EXDP 
870  PRINT" [WHITE, SHFT  P] RESS  (RED][ 

[SHFT  E] ] [WHITE]  TO  EDIT  OR 

[GREEN]  [  [SHFT  C] ]  [WHITE] 
TO  CONTINUE" ' BAKV 
880  PRINT" [SPACE2]LISTING.  [SHFT  H] 

IT  (L.  BLUE] [[SHFT  Q] ] [WHITE] 
TO  QUIT. " 'BAMT 
890  GET  KES:IF  KE$=""THEN  890'EKYP 
900  IF  KE$="C"THEN  850'DGUG 
910  IF  KE$="Q"THEN  1000'DHUH 
920  IF  KESO"E"THEN  890'EGXJ 
930  FE=1'BDJH 


935  PRINT" [HOME, DOWN22 , SPACE2 , SHFT  T] 

YPE  OVER  THE  OLD  DATA  WITH  NEW 

THEN'"BAOX 
940  PRINT" [SPACE2] HIT  [YELLOW] [ 

[SHFT  R,SHFT  E,SHFT  T,SHFT  U, 

SHFT  R,SHFT  N ] ] . [ SPACE1 2] " ' BAGQ 
950  PRINT  HMS: INPUT  MTS (Q) 

:PRINT  HMS  +  " [DOWN2] " ' EOHN 
955  INPUT  MI$(Q):PRINT  HMS+" [DOWN4 ] " 

: INPUT  MAS(Q) 'ERJT 
960  PRINT  HMS+" [DOWN6] ": INPUT  MP${Q) 

:PRINT  HMS+" [DOWNS] " 

: INPUT  AAS(Q) 'GVWS 
970  PRINT  HMS+" [DOWN10] ":INPUT  ATS (Q) 

: PRINT  HMS+" [DOWN12] " 

: INPUT  MC$(Q) 'GVOT 
980  Q=Q-l:GOTO  850'DHSO 
990  PRINT" [CLEAR, RED, SHFT  T] 

HERE  ARE  NO  MORE  ENTRIES." 

:FOR  W=l  TO  2000 : NEXT ' FIVY 
1000  IF  FE=1  THEN  FE=0:GOSUB  1020 

:RUN'GMPY 
1010  GOTO  100'BDAU 

1020  REM  -  SAVE  CATALOG  TO  DISK  - ' BTYA 
10  30  PRINT#15,"S0: — CATALOG — ":EC=19 

:GOSUB  1510'DNQE 
1040  OPEN  2,8,2,"0:~-CATALOG — ,S,W" 

:EC=19:GOSUB  1510'DQLG 
1050  PRINT#2,A'BDEY 
1060  FOR  Q=l  TO  A'DDDB 
1070  PRINT#2,MT$(Q) SSMIS(Q) S$MA$(Q) 

SSMPS (Q) SSAAS (Q) S$ATS (Q) SSMCS (Q) 

S$'BITN 
1080  NEXT  Q:EC=19:GOSUB  1510 

:CLOSE  2'ENYG 
1090  PRINT"  [SHFT  C]ATALOG  SAVED. 

[SHFT  P]RESS  A  KEY  TO 

CONTINUE. "'BAJO 
1100  GET  KES:IF  KES=""THEN  1100'ELHX 
1110  RETURN'BAQU 
1120  REM  -  GET  CATALOG  FROM  DISK 

-'BUJC 
1130  INPUT#2,A$:A=VAL(A$) :OA=A 

:FOR  Q=l  TO  A'HSCF 
114  0  INPUT#2,MTS(Q) ,MIS(Q) ,MAS(Q), 

MP$(Q) ,AAS(Q) ,ATS(Q) ,MC$(Q) 'BARJ 
1150  NEXT  Q:EC=0:GOSUB  1510 

:CLOSE  2'EMRE 
1160  GOTO  100'BDAB 
1170  REM  -  PRINT  LIST  -'BLCE 
1180  SPS=" [SPACE2] " :PRINT" [DOWN2] " 

:PRINT" [SPACE2,SHFT  M]AGAZINE 

: [YELLOW] " :PRINT  SPSMTS (Q) ' EPLM 
1190  PRINT" [WHITE, SPACE2, SHFT  M]ONTH/ 

[SHFT  Y] EAR: [YELLOW]" 

:PRINT  SPSMIS(Q) 'CKHL 
1200  PRINT" [WHITE, SPACE2, SHFT  A] 

RTICLE  NAME: [YELLOW] " 

:PRINT  SP$MAS(Q) 'CKRD 
1210  PRINT" [WHITE, SPACE2, SHFT  P] 

AGE  OF  ARTICLE: [YELLOW] " 

:PRINT  SPSMP$(Q) 'CKFF 
1220  PRINT" [WHITE, SPACE2, SHFT  A] 

UTHORS  NAME: [YELLOW] " 

:PRINT  SP$AAS (Q) 'CKOF 

Continued  on  page  112 


76  AUGUST  1988 


Amiga  Software  Reviews/ Ferrari  Formula  One' 


Continued  from  page  32 

At  Fiorano,  there  are  44  sensors  around 
the  track,  so  you  can  compare  segment 
times  from  lap  to  lap  to  determine  your 
weak  areas.  Since  your  Ferrari  is  the  only 
one  on  the  track,  you  don't  have  to  worry 
about  avoiding  or  colliding  with  other 
cars,  As  you  drive,  the  scenery  (which  is 
different  at  each  track)  moves  quite 
smoothly,  especially  when  the  car  takes 
turns.  On  a  straightaway,  however,  the 
buildings  and  terrain  to  the  front  don't  get 
larger  as  you  approach  them.  One  nice 
touch  is  that  the  view  in  your  rear-view 
mirrors  changes  as  you  drive  to  actually 
reflect  what  is  behind  you.  If  you  stray 
off  the  track,  you  are  politely  bumped 
back  on. 

Once  you  have  practiced  to 
your  heart's  content,  you  can 
pull  off  to  the  paddock  and 
make  final  adjustments  to 
your  Ferrari. 

Once  you  have  practiced  to  your  heart's 
content,  you  can  pull  off  to  the  paddock 
and  make  final  adjustments  to  your  Fer- 
rari. When  you're  satisfied,  it's  off  to  the 
races.  Click  on  the  area  of  the  paddock 
with  the  trucks  and  off  you  go.  A  screen 
showing  a  map  of  the  world  appears  with 
icons  depicting  the  weather.  A  requester 
box  comes  up,  and  you  can  click  on  the 
track  of  your  choice.  A  small  jet  plane 
then  streaks  across  the  map  to  whisk  you 
to  your  destination.  Each  track  has  its 
own  paddock  area  which  looks  identical 
from  track  to  track.  Information  about  the 
track  you  are  at  appears  at  the  top  of  the 
screen,  and  you  are  advised  whether  the 
track  is  open  or  closed.  If  closed,  you  can 
still  practice  there,  but  the  track  will  only 
officially  open  several  days  prior  to  the  ac- 
tual race.  As  the  simulation  begins  in 
January,  1986,  you  might  well  end  up  at  a 
track  several  months  before  (or  after  I  the 
actual  race.  The  date,  however,  can  be  ad- 
justed from  the  Race  Control  Panel. 

Each  Grand  Prix  race  has  six  distinct 
track  sessions  which  are  spread  out  over 
three  days.  These  are  documented  in  the 
manual.  On  the  first  day,  session  one 
(practice)  starts  at  ten  in  the  morning. 
Here  you  get  the  feel  of  the  track.  At  two 
in  the  afternoon,  the  first  qualifying  ses- 
sion begins.  How  well  you  do  here  helps 
determine  your  starting  position.  The  two 
sessions  on  the  second  day  mirror  the 


first.  On  day  three,  there  is  a  30-minute 
warm-up  session  in  the  morning  followed 
by  the  actual  race  in  the  afternoon. 

Each  race  is  two  hours  or  310  kilome- 
ters, whichever  is  reached  first  This  en- 
compasses from  45-90  laps,  depending  on 
the  length  of  the  course.  Using  the  Race 
Control  Panel,  however,  you  can  shorten 
the  race  to  a  more  desirable  length  as 
your  finger  and  wrist  can  get  mighty  tired 
after  a  while.  These  sessions  differ  from 
Fiorano  as  there  are  other  cars  on  the 
track  which,  of  course,  make  driving  all 
the  more  difficult  and  treacherous.  If  you 
don't  know  what  you're  doing,  you're  like- 
ly to  collide  with  another  car  very  early  on 
and  end  the  race  (and  perhaps  the  season) 
right  then  and  there.  Most  likely,  the  oth- 
er cars  will  zoom  out  ahead  of  you  and  dis- 
appear into  the  sunset.  If  you're  slow 
enough,  eventually  they  will  catch  up 
with  you  and  zoom  past  you  again,  al- 
though it's  fun  watching  them  in  your 
rear-view  mirror.  If  you  manage  to  com- 
plete the  race,  your  time  and  standing  will 
be  displayed  and  saved  to  you:-  disk,  so 
you  can  see  how  you  fared  at  the  end  of 
the  season.  Now  you  can  either  return  to 
Fiorano  to  adjust  your  systems  and  prac- 
tice some  more  or  proceed  to  the  next  race. 

Ferrari  Formula  One  is  really  two 
games  in  one.  If  you  just  want  to  have  fun 
racing  around  the  courses  with  a  stock  car, 
you  can  do  just  that.  The  course  layouts 
are  true  to  life,  and  although  the  dia- 
grams of  the  courses  in  the  manual  show 
dear  distinctions,  they  tend  to  feel  alike 
while  you  are  racing  (a  few  more  right 
hand  curves  here,  a  few  more  left  hand 
curves  there).  If  you  want  to  take  full  ad- 
vantage of  the  simulation,  it's  fun  to 
tweak  the  various  systems  of  your  car  and 
see  the  difference,  although  the  ever-pres- 
ent Mauro  will  make  you  wonder  whether 
you  should  contradict  him  at  all. 

The  manual  is  complete  but  often  hard 
to  follow.  Although  Electronic  Arts  has 
sprinkled  helpful  notes  liberally  through- 
out the  manual,  the  meaning  of  the 
graphs  in  both  the  Dyno  Room  and  Wind 
Tunnel  is  never  fully  explained  and  to  this 
day  remains  a  mystery  to  me. 

Viewed  as  an  arcade  racing  game, 
Ferrari  Formula  One  can  keep  you  glued 
to  the  screen,  your  hand  clutching  the 
mouse,  trying  to  negotiate  hairpin  turns 
and  avoiding  other  cars  and  drivers  who 
are  clearly  better  practiced  than  you.  But 
who  knows,  toward  the  end  of  the  Grand 
Prix  season,  you  just  may  work  your  way 
up  to  the  pole  position— with  a  little  help 
from  Mauro,  of  course.  g 


200  PROGRAMS 
C-64®  &  C-128® 


220  Programs  on  10  Disks 
FOR  ONLY  $39.95 

Plus  $3.00  S&H  (Foreign-$5.00) 
(C-128  programs  run  in  the  C-128  Mode) 


Dear  Friend 

The  offer  discribed  above  is  not  a  misspfint. 
We  will  send  you  ten  disks  containing  220 
fine  public  domain  programs  lor  either  the 
C-64  or  C-128  for  only  $39.95  (U.S.  funds) 
plus  $3.00  shipping  &  handling  (U.S.  and 
Canada).  Foreign  shipping  is  $5.00. 
Please  note  that  the  C-128  programs  run  in 
the  C-128  mode  and  load  in  the  "burst" 
mode  with  the  1571  drive, 

Public  domain  programs  are  programs 
which  were  not  copyrighted  or  which  have 
been  released  from  copyright  status.  Many 
were  formerly  commercial  programs,  and 
many  others  were  written  by  professional 
programmers  who  released  them  into  the 
public  domain  as  a  public  service. 

QUALITY:  We  have  over  3000  public 
domain  programs  for  the  C-64  and  C-128. 
We  have  selected  220  of  the  best  programs 
for  each  computer  for  this  offer.  We  honest- 
ly believe  that  this  is  the  best  software  value 
available  anywhere. 

TYPES  OF  PROGRAMS:  Each  of 
our  disks  contains  a  selection  of  programs 
in  the  categories  of  utilities  (programming 
aids,  computer  and  drive  utilities,  printer 
utilities,  etc.);  games  (both  arcade  and 
text);  education  (including  educational 
games);  home/business;  and  music, 

INSTRUCTIONS:      We  are  the  only 

major  distributor  of  public  domain 
programs  that  provides  instructions  for  all 
our  programs  -  either  as  part  of  the  program 
itself  or  in  a  separate  instruction  file. 

GUARANTEE:  We  are  also  the  only 
company  that  offers  a  money  back  guaran- 
tee for  public  domain  programs.  If  you  are 
dissatisfied  with  our  disks,  return  Ihem 
within  15  days  of  receipt  for  a  refund  (less 
shipping  and  handling  costs  and  a  20  per- 
cent restocking  fee). 

HOW  TO  ORDER:  Use  our  toll  free 
number  to  order  and  charge  it  to  your  VISA 
or  Mastercard,  or  send  a  check  or  money 
order.  If  ordering  be  mail,  be  sure  to  tell  us 
which  computer  you  have. 

ADDITIONAL  INFORMATION:  We 

have  a  brochure  which  contains  the  disk 
directories  of  all  the  disks,  Write  us  or  circle 
our  reader  service  number  at  the  back  of 
this  magazine. 

Sincerely, 

Lynne  Adams 


ADAMS  SOFTWARE 

801  HENRYETTA,  SUITE  2 
SPRINGDALE,  AR  72764 

»  Commodore  64  &  128  are  trademarKs  of 
Commodore  Eloclronfcs  Ud. 


PHONE  ORDERS:  MON-FRI,  8-6  CENTRAL 

1-800-634-0989 


128  MODE" 


by  Mark  Jordan 


Foolproof-Files 

Explore  the  Commodore  128  in  its 
powerful  native  mode.  Some  of 
the  articles  in  this  column  may  be 
technical,  some  not  so  technical — 
but  we  guarantee  that  they  will 
spark  your  creativity. 


Foolproof-Files  is  a  program  you  need 
if:  1)  you'd  like  an  easy-to-use  pro- 
gram loader  that  works  on  any  and  every 
disk,  2)  you'd  like  an  easy-to-use  file  load- 
er that  works  within  any  program.  It's  the 
program  I  wish  someone  had  written  for 
me  before  I  wrote  ArcheType,  a  word  pro- 
cessor published  in  Commodore  Micro- 
computers in  May/June  1986, 

I  was  looking  tor  a  slick  way  to  lei  the 
user  load  word  processing  fdes  without 
having  to  type  in  the  names  (you  know 
how  easy  it  is  to  mistype  I.  Even  with  the 
128s  convenient  DIRECTORY  command 
there  seemed  no  easy  way  to  turn  those  di- 
rectory filenames  into  variables  that  I 
could  manipulate. 

Foolproof-Files  does  just  that.  It  will 
read  the  directory  (or  a  selective  directory) 
and  turn  each  filename  into  a  subscripted 
variable.  The  files  are  then  listed  in  a  win- 
dow centered  neatly  on  the  screen.  The 
user  simply  cursors  up  or  down  to  the  file 
he  wants,  presses  RETURN  and  the  pro- 
gram (or  file)  loads  and  runs.  If  there  hap- 
pens to  be  more  directory  items  than  a 
single  window  can  hold,  no  problem.  The 
window  scrolls  its  contents  up  and  down. 

The  program  isn't  long,  so  type  it  in 
now.  Use  the  Magazine  Entry  Program  to 
make  the  job  easier.  Then  save  it  to  any 
and  every  disk  you  own. 

Using  Foolproof-Files  as  a 
Program  Loader 

Using  Foolproof-Files  is  as  simple  as 
running  the  program.  Computer  pros  like 
yourself  will  have  no  trouble  using  it.  But 
don't  stop  there.  Use  Foolproof-Files  to 
make  gift  disks  that  even  the  least  com- 
puter-handy of  your  friends  will  be  able  to 
use  easily. 

There  are  two  ways  to  make  Foolproof- 
Files  even  more  convenient  as  a  program 
loader.  One  is  to  place  Foolproof-File.-  as 
the  first  program  in  the  directory'-  Doing 
so  will  allow  the  user  to  simply  place  the 
disk  in  the  drive,  press  SHIFT-RUN/ 
STOP  and  start  cursoring.  Lf  you  don't 


know  how  to  place  a  file  in  the  first  slot  on 
the  directory,  fear  not.  The  Shell  program 
that  comes  with  the  1571  drive  makes  it 
easy.  Place  your  1571  Test  Demo  disk  in 
the  drive,  turn  on  your  128  and,  after  the 
Shell  program  has  booted,  slip  whatever 
disks  you  have  Foolproof-Files  saved  on 
into  the  drive,  press  Fl.  select  Rearrange 
Files  and  follow  the  prompts. 

The  second  way  to  improve  convenience 
is  to  create  a  boot  sector  that  automatical- 
ly loads  and  runs  the  program  when  the 
computer  is  turned  on  with  a  disk  in  the 
drive.  If  you've  never  created  a  ''boot  disk" 
here's  an  easy  way  tu  do  it. 

Place  your  1571  Test-Demo  disk  in  the 
drive  and  DLOAD  "Autoboot  Maker" 
Take  out  the  TestDemo  disk  and  place  the 
disk  with  Foolproof-Files  on  it  in  the 
drive.  RUN  the  program.  When  the  com- 
puter asks  whether  you  have  a  BASIC  or 
binary  file,  choose  BASIC.  Then  type  in 
"Foolproof-Files"  when  it  asks  for  the 
name  of  the  program  you  want  as  a  boot 
program,  and  the  rest  will  happen  auto- 
matically. 

One  sticking  point  remains:  machine 
language  programs.  These  are  programs 
that  must  be  loaded  into  memory-specific 
locations,  you  know,  the  ones  you  load 
with  a  BLOAD  on  the  128  or  ,8,1  on  the 
fi4.  The  remedy  is  simple:  write  a  boot  pro- 
gram to  load  these.  For  example,  if  you 
have  an  ML  program  called  "GrimtMan" 
on  a  disk  which  you  formerly  had  to  load 
like  this: 

LOAD  ■•Grunt-Man".8,l:SYS  49152 
you  can  now  simply  turn  that  into  a  pro- 
gram by  typing 

10  LOAD  "Grunt-Man"  .8.LSYS  49152 

Save  the  above  with  a  name  such  as 
"Grunt-Man.boot."  Now  when  the  window 
of  files  comes  up.  cursor  to  this  one  and 
press  RETURN  to  tun  the  program.  (See 
notes  below  on  how  to  create  a  selective  di- 


recton  loader  so  that  only  run-able  pro- 
grams will  show'  up  in  the  window,  i 

Using  Foolproof-Files  as  a  File 
leader 

Incoiporating  this  program  as  a  subrou- 
tine within  other  programs  is  almost  as 
easy.  There  are  just  a  few  things  you  need 
to  know. 

First,  renumber  whatever  program  you 
want  this  directory  loader  to  appear  in  so 
that  the  first  line  number  is  30  (or  great- 
er) and  the  last  line  number  is  less  than 
10000.  Now  type  in  Foolproof-Files  (with 
the  original  program  already  in  memory). 

Foolproof-Files  uses  only  variables  be- 
ginning with  the  letter  Z  (such  as  Zl,  ZlS, 
ZC,  etc.),  so  as  long  as  you  don't  have  any 
Z  variables  in  your  program  there's  no 
problem.  If  you  do  have  any,  either  change 
them  to  another  name,  or  prior  to  GO- 
SUBing  to  the  Foolproof-Files  subroutine, 
save  all  your  Z  variables  then  reset  upon 
exiting. 

Finally,  delete  lines  20  and  21. 

Now  any  time  you  want  your  program 
to  show  the  directory  (and  allow  the  user 
to  select  a  file  from  it),  simply  include  this 
line: 

GOSUB  10270.GOSUB  10010 

Upon  returning  from  10010  you'll  have 
the  name  of  the  file  that  was  selected  in 
the  variable  Z$.  You  can  then  load  it  how- 
ever you  need  to  for  your  use.  I  For  exam- 
ple, if  it's  a  sequential  file,  DOPEN 
#2j  2$ i  get.-  things  started.) 

One  final  note:  the  screen's  contents  are 
not  saved  when  you  use  Foolproof-Files.  If 
you  want  the  window  to  be  replaced  with 
the  original  screen  layout  after  calling 
this  routine,  you'll  need  to  include  your 
own  screen  routine  lor  use  the  screen-save 
routine  published  in  this  column  in  the 
February  1988  issue). 

One  more'  final  note:  if  you  want  a  selec- 


78    AUGUST  1988 


128  MODE;  Foolproof-Files 

Machine  Language  Directory  Routine 

-Entering  the  routine  (fa,fb)  points  to  string  pointer 
-(fc,fc)  points  to  actual  address  of  string 


OOcOO  20  37  Oc    jsr      $0c37 


00c03  20 

cf 

ff 

jsr 

$ffcf 

00c06  20 

2<i 

Oc 

jsr 

$0c2d 

00c09  bO 

la 

bcs 

$0c25 

OOcOb  c9 

22 

cmp 

#$22 

OOcOd  dO 

f4 

bne 

$0c03 

OOcOf  20 

cf 

ff 

jsr 

$ffcf 

00cl2  20 

2d 

Oc 

jsr 

$0c2d 

00cl5  bO 

Oe 

bcs 

S()c25 

00cl7  c9 

00 

cmp 

#$00 

00cl9  fl) 

eS 

beq 

S0c03 

OOclb  c9 

22 

cmp 

#S22 

OOcld  fO 

50 

beq 

$0c55 

OOclf  20 

82 

Oc 

jsr 

$0c5c 

00c22  c8 

iny 

00c23  dO 

ea 

bne 

$0cOf 

exit  for  end  of  directory 


00c25  e6   fe 


inc     $fe 


00c27  a2  01 

ldx 

#$01 

00c29  20  c6    ff 

jsr 

$ffc6 

00c2c  60 

its 

status  bit  check 

00c2d  18 

clc 

00c2e  aa 

tax 

00c2f  a5  90 

Ida 

$90 

00c31  dO  02 

bne 

$0c35 

00c33  8a 

txa 

set  file  for  input  and  set  (fe) 

to  point  to  actual  string  addr 

in  bank  1 

get  a  byte  from  opened  file 

check  status  bit 

if  carry  set  we're  outta  here 

,now  see  if  A  is  a  quote  (first 

of  2) 

if  not  go  back  and  repeat 

inside  quotes,  start  getting 

bytes 

check  status  again  each  time 

if  set  must  be  end  of  file 

if  chrS(01  this  item  is  junk 

so  go  back  to  start 

check  if  second  quote 

if  it  is  then  end  of  dir  item, 

exit  routine 

else  STASH  A  at  (fc) 

and  inc  Y  offset 

and  jump  back  for  more 

bytes 


;set  fe>0  to  show  directory  is 

;done 

;resetjchkin 

;( it  has  to  be  done) 

;exit 


;clear  flag 

;save  A 

;check  status  flag 

;if  st>0  then  branch 

;get  A  back 


00c34  60 

its 

return  with  carry  clear 

00c35  38 

sec 

set  carry  if  st>0 

00c36  60 

its 

setup  input  channel  and  point  (fc)  to  string  address 

00c37  a2  02 

ldx 

#$02 

select  file  number  to 

00c39  20  c6 

ff 

jsr 

$ffc6 

set  current  file  for  input 

00c3c  aO  01 

ldy 

#$01 

now  get  second  byte  after  (fa) 

00c3e  20  4e 

Oc 

jsr 

$0c4e 

which  points  to  actual  ad- 
dress of  string 

00c41  85  fc 

sta 

$fc 

which  we'll  store  at  (fc) 

00c43  c8 

iny 

increment  y  offset 

00c44  20  4e 

Oc 

jsr 

$0c4e 

get  next  byte  of  address 

00c47  85   fd 

sta 

$fd 

finish  preparation 

00c49  aO  00 

ldy 

#$00 

00c4b  84  fe 

sty 

$fe 

fe  =  0  until  directory  is  com- 
pletely read 

00c4d  60 


its 


get  byte  from  bank  1  at  (fa),y 

00c4e  a9  fa  Ida     #$fa 

00c50  a2  01  ldx     #$01 

00c52  4c   74  ff    jmp    $274 


reset  jchkin  to  1 

00c55  98  tya 

00c56  48  pha 

00c57  20   27  Oc    jsr 

OOcSa  68  pla 

OOcob  60  its 

stash  routine 


.select  zeropage  address 
.choose  bankl 
get  byte  zp  points  to  bankl 
and  return 


;save  Y 


$0c27    ;reset  jchkin 
;get  back  Y 


00c5c  a2  fa  ldx  #$fc 

00c5e  8e  b9  02    stx  $02b9 

00c61  a2  01  ldx  #$01 

00c63  4c  77  ff     jmp  $ff77 


point  STASH  to  (fc) 
store 

select  bank  1 
STASH  and  return 


tive  directory,  change  the  variable  DR$  in 
line  10270  to  whatever  you  want.  For  ex- 
ample, to  list  only  the  files  starting  with  a 
"W.",  change  it  to  DRS  =  "W.*"  Be  sure  to 
include  the  asterisk  (*)  on  the  end  as  a 
wildcard. 

What  Made  It  So  Hard? 

I've  done  a  lot  of  programming  over  the 
years,  both  in  BASIC  and  in  machine  lan- 
guage. What  made  a  program  like  this  so 
difficult  to  do  on  the  128  was  reading  the 
directory  in  machine  language  and  saving 
each  filename  as  a  variable.  Sometimes 
meshing  BASIC  with  ML  gets  tricky,  es- 
pecially due  to  the  128's  banked  variables. 

For  those  of  you  interested  in  how  the 
job  gets  done,  here's  a  brief  overview  of  the 
program  logic.  I've  included  a  commented 
machine  language  disassembly  for  those 


who  want  to  study  it  in  even  more  detail. 
The  subroutine  beginning  in  line  10270 
opens  the  directory  as  a  file.  Starting  with 
line  10300  the  routine  jumps  into  a  ma- 
chine language  subroutine  at 
DECrOCOO")  which  grabs  the  directory  a 
byte  at  a  time,  finds  the  quotes,  and  turns 
what's  in-between  quotes  (the  filenames) 
into  the  variable  Z3S.  Upon  exiting  this 
ML  subroutine  the  accumulator  contains 
the  length  of  the  filename  it  has  just 
found.  That's  whv  line  10300  has  an 
RREG  ZO  following  the  SYS  command. 
This  makes  the  variable  Z0  equal  the 
length  of  the  filename  which  we  will  use 
in  line  10320  to  strip  off  excess  characters 
from  previous  filenames. 

The  rest  of  the  10270  subroutine  com- 
pletes the  process  of  turning  all  the  direc- 
tory items  into  the  Zl$0  array. 


The  other  subroutine — 10010 — has  a 
different  task.  It  takes  this  array  and 
prints  it  on  the  screen  so  that  the  user  can 
cursor  quickly  up  and  down  to  find  and 
load  any  file. 

An  idiosyncrasy  of  the  128  that  you 
should  know  about  concerns  line-linking. 
It  can  cause  the  screen  format  to  get 
messed  up  and  add  an  extra  line  if  you 
print  to  the  right  edge  of  a  window.  Line 
10070  prevents  this  line-linking  from 
happening  with  POKE  248,  PEEK(248) 
OR  64.  If  you  ever  run  into  this  problem, 
try  this  poke. 

That's  a  brief  overview.  The  commented 
source  code  gets  into  the  nitty  gritty. 
Study  it  to  learn  more.  Whether  you're  a 
programmer  or  not,  Foolproof-Files  will 
make  a  handy  addition  to  your  disk  collec- 
"on-  Continued  tin  page  80 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE     79 


Attention 
Programmers 

Have  you  written  a  program  that  you  would  like  to 
share  with  others  -  -  and  make  a  little  money 
while  you're  at  it? 

Commodore  Magazine 

is  now  accepting 
quality  programs. 

A  BASIC  routine  for  handling  a  difficult  problem 

A  project  that  uses  the  Commodore  64,  1 28  or 

Amiga 

A  game  that  is  sure  to  win  over  the  world 

A  utility  for  helping  with  mundane  chores 

A  machine  language  routine  to  make  programming 

easier 

Send  for  your  Guidelines  for  Writers 
today! 


Commodore  Magazine, 

1200  Wilson  Drive,  West  Chester,  PA 
ATTN:  Guidelines  for  Writers 


9380 


128  Mode /Foolproof-Files 

Continued  from  page  19 

Before  lyping  [hisprugram.  read  Hem  to  Entei  Program'  .md  "How  n>  Use  ihe  Magazine 
Entsy  Program."  The  BASIC,  programs  in  thi-  magazine  are  available  »n  disk  from  Luadstar. 
PO  Bos  30IXB.  Sbicveport,  LA  711300007,  1-800  831-269*1. 

Foolproof-Files 

10  Z3S  =  "  [5PACE18]":Z4S=Z3S:ES=CHRS(27) 
:JS=ES+"J" 'GWCI 

11  DIM  Z1S  (144)  "BIFA 

12  FOR  ZZ=0  TO  101:READ  AS 

:POKE  3072+ZZ, DEC(AS) :NEXT' IWUI 

13  DATA  20,37,0C,20,CF,FF,20,2D,0C,B0, 
1A,C9,22,D0,P4,2O'BWSK 

14  DATA  CF,FF,20,2D,0C,B0,0E,C9,00,F0, 

E8,C9,22,F0, 36,20'BWCL 

15  DATA  5C,0C,C8,D0,EA,E6,FE,A2,01,20, 

C6,FF,60,18,AA,A5'BWBM 

16  DATA  90, DO, 02, 8A, 60, 38 , 6U - A2 , 0 2 , 20 , 
C6,FF,A0,01,20,4E'BWNH 

17  DATA  0C,3  5,FC,C8,20,4E,0C,B5,FD,A0, 
0O,84,FE,60,A9,FA'BWKO 

18  DATA  A2,01,4C,74,FF,98,48,2*J,27,0C, 

68,6G,A2,FC,8E,B9'BWJP 

19  DATA  02,A2,01,4C,77,FF'BRGK 

20  GOSUB  10270:GOSUB  1001U'CLNB 

21  RUN(ZS) 'BENA 

22  REM  DELETE  LINE  21  TO  USE  WITHIN  A 

PROGRAM' BGLJ 
10010  ZW=ll:SLOW: IF  RW1 NDOW ( 2 ) =80 
THEN  ZW=31:FAST' ITNC 


10020  WINDOW  ZW,4,ZW+17,21,1 

:P0KE  248,PEEK(248)AND  191'FDDC 
10030  PRINT" [RVS ,GREEN| 

"LEFT$(Z1$(0) +  Z4S, 

17)CHRS(27) "M"'ESPA 
13040  FOR  ZZ=1  TO  1 5 : PRINT" [ RVS , GREEN j 
[L.  GREEN] "LEFTS(Z1S(ZZ)+Z4S, 

16)" [GREEN]  ":NEXT'HWXF 
10050  Z5S=" [RVS, GREEN]  [L.    GREEN, 

SPACE16, GREEN]  ":IF  Z2>15  THEN 

Z5S="[RVS]   [L.  GREEN] 

MORE [GREEN]  "' FLCD 

10060  PRINT  Z5S:PRINT" [RVS, GREEN, 

SPACE19]  "'CEYB 
10070  POKE  248,PEEK(248)OR  64'DLSC 
10080  WINDOW  ZW+1, 5,ZW+16,20 

:PRINT"[L.  GREEN] 

"LEFTS(Z1S (1) +Z4S,16) 'GENE 
10090  ZC=1:ZT=1:ZD=ZC'DMNF 
10100  DO: REM  BEGIN  DO  LOOP'CMEV 
10110  GET  KEY  ZZS:IF  I NSTR ( " [ UP, DOWN ] 

"+CHRS(13) ,ZZS)=0  THEN 

10110' IUOD 
10120  IF  ZZS=CHRS{13)THEN  EXIT'FHLY 
10130  IF  ZZS="  [UP] "THEN  BEGIN 

:IF  ZC=1  THEN  10240'HNUD 
10140  ZC=ZC-1'CFYX 
10150  GOTO  10200'BFXX 
10160  BEND'BBXY 

10170  IF  ZZ$=" [DOWN) "THEN  BEGIN 

:IF  ZC=Z2  THEN  10240'HOHB 
!  10180  ZC=ZC+1'CFXC 
10190  BEND'BBXC 
10  200  CHAR, 0,ZD-ZT, LEFTS (Z15 (ZD) +Z4$, 

16) , l'EAQB 
10210  IF  ZC<ZT  THEN  PRINT  ES"W" 

:ZT=ZT-1'GMXB 
10220  IF  ZOZT+15  THEN  PRINT  E$"V" 

:ZT=ZT+l'HOKD 
10230  CHAR, 0,ZC-ZT, LEFTS (Zl$(ZC)+Z4S, 

16) :ZD=ZC'FDKA 
10240  LOOP:PRINT" [HOME2] " 

:ZS=Z1S (ZC) 'DLKB 
|  10250  RETURN'BAQX 
10270  DRS  =  "*":OPEN  2  ,  8 , 0 , "S : "  +  DRS 

:IF  DS>19  THEN  GOSUB  10380 

:GOTO  10340'IEEF 
10280  Z5=POINTER{Z3S) : Z3=INT (Z 5/2 56) 

:Z4=Z5  AND  255:POKE  250, Z4 

:POKE  251,Z3'JPLK 
10290  Z1=0'BDID 

10300  DO:SYS  DEC("0C00") : RREG  Z0'EHJY 
10310  IF  PEEK(254)>0  THEN  EXIT'FGXY 
10320  ZlS(Zl) =LEFTS(Z3S,Z0) 

:Z1=Z1+1'EVDD 
10330  LOOP'BAKW 
10340  CLOSE  2'BBJX 
10350  FOR  ZZ=Z1  TO  Z3:21S (ZZ) ="" 

:NEXT'FPEF 
10360  Z2=Z1-1: RETURN 'DGID 
10380  PRINT"[SHFT  D]ISK  ERROR!" 

: SLEEP  3 :DCLEAR: RETURN' EGMD    END 


80    AUGUST  1988 


Adventure  Road  Infoconi  Goes  Graphic,  EA  Gets  Wasted' 


Continued  from  page  4b' 
or  her  Intelligence.  You  can  spend  these 
on  Clip  Pistol,  Demolition,  Bureaucracy 
and  23  other  skills.  When  someone  is  pro- 
moted, he  gets  two  "adventure  points" 
that  can  be  used  to  boost  any  of  his  attri- 
butes. If  you  add  some  to  Intelligence, 
you'll  be  able  to  learn  new  skills  or  en- 
hance current  ones  at  the  nearest  Libraiy, 
which  is  the  game's  equivalent  of  a  Guild. 
Skills  are  also  improved  with  use. 

In  most  role-playing  games,  your  char- 
acters' skills  determine  how  effectively  he 
performs  related  tasks.  That  is  true  here, 
but  Wasteland  also  uses  skills  the  way 
they're  applied  in  a  pen  and  paper  RPG. 
When  faced  with  a  steep  cliff,  you  must 
use  your  Climb  skill,  lb  do  so,  you  press 
"U,"  pick  a  character,  and  punch  "S"  for 
Skill.  Then  you  rap  another  key  to  indi- 
cate the  direction  in  which  vou  want  to 
Climb. 

In  your  travels  you'll  meet  and  can  hire 
up  to  three  NPCs,  non-player  characters 
who  make  many  decisions  (such  as  who  to 
fire  at  in  combat)  for  themselves.  They 
might  have  clues  that  help  solve  various 
puzzles,  too.  But  most  clues  are  revealed 
in  the  scene's  text  descriptions,  a  charac- 
ter's text  window  (that  offers  a  parser  so 


you  can  type  in  a  few  words!  or  a  separate 
booklet  of  over  100  numbered  paragraphs 
to  which  the  game  refers  you  at  certain 
points.  The  puzzles  are  unusual,  often 
reminiscent  of  those  in  a  text  game.  Many 
are  the  sort  you  can  think  through  logical- 
ly without  having  to  map  every  square 
inch  of  a  maze.  (Mapping,  in  fact,  is  hard- 
ly  necessary,  although  there  are  many 
towns,  buildings  and  other  areas  to  ex- 
plore.) 

Lots  of  puzzles  have  multiple  solutions. 
If  you  don't  know  the  safe's  combination,  a 
character's  Safecrack  skill  might  open  it. 
Also,  vital  objects  are  often  found  in  sever- 
al places:  I  found  two  Sonar  Keys,  for  ex- 
ample. And  it's  a  good  thing,  because  once 
you  grab  an  object  in  this  world,  it's  gone 
forever— you  can't  return  and  get  it  again 
or  repeat  an  encounter  to  score  extra  expe- 
rience points  as  with  the  Bei-serkers  in 
Bard's  Tale. 

Most  of  the  time  you  see  an  aerial  view 
of  the  town  or  outdoors,  but  in  combat  you 
get  a  picture  of  the  enemy  and  a  text 
menu  for  making  decisions  (like  Bard's 
Tale,  also  an  Interplay  production).  Each 
party  member  can  carry  up  to  30  items, 
from  Uzis  to  LAW  rockets  and  laser  pis- 
tols. You  can  divide  the  group  into  several 


bands,  (sometimes  necessary  to  solve  puz- 
zles). The  View  command  lets  you  switch 
to  see  another  group,  even  if  it's  currently 
located  in  an  area  on  another  disk.  ( Waste- 
land covers  lxjth  sides  of  two  disks.)  A 
handy  utility  lets  you  print  all  character 
stats  and  possessions. 

This  is  one  game  I'm  seeing  through  to 
the  end.  1  like  the  way  skills  and  charac- 
ter development  are  handled,  and  the  sto- 
ry is  original — more  than  just  another 
"after  the  bomb"  scenario.  Part  of  the  rea- 
son is  that  it  was  written  by  Ken  St.  An- 
dre and  Michael  Stackpole,  both  well 
known  in  the  realm  of  pen  and  paper  role 
playing.  Stackpole's  prose  is  fresh  and  viv- 
id, even  in  the  scrolling  combat  reports. 
The  puzzles,  too,  are  a  welcome  change  of 
pace  from  those  encountered  in  typical 
role-playing  games.  From  what  I've  seen 
this  year,  Wasteland  is  currently  the  front- 
runner  for  "Best  Quest  of  1988." 

Incidentally,  this  and  Bard's  Tale  IU  are 
the  last  Interplay  games  that  will  be  mar- 
keted by  Electronic  Aits.  Interplay  is  now 
publishing  its  own  software,  distributed 
by  Broderbund.  Their  first  independent 
release  will  be  an  Amiga  strategy  game; 
the  next  will  be  a  64  RPG  based  on  the  sci- 
ence fiction  novel  Newvmancer.  ra 


Amiga  Software  Reviews/Fire  Power 

Contin  ued  from  page  38 

alike.  So  as  men  come  scrambling  out  of  a 
pile  of  smoking  rubble  you  have  to  quick- 
ly determine  which  are  enemy  troops  and 
which  are  on  your  side.  If  you  delay  too 
long,  the  enemy  troops  may  get  away.  But 
if  you  shoot  too  soon  you  could  hit  your 
own  troops.  If  they  are  friendly  troops,  it  is 
your  duty  to  wait  for  them  to  climb  on 
board  your  tank  and  rescue  them.  Rescu- 
ing troops  presents  still  another  chal- 
lenge. If  you  move  too  quickly  you  may- 
run  over  your  own  men,  but  if  you  delay 
too  long  your  tank  may  come  under  en- 
emy fire  or  helicopter  attack.  Dozens  of 
features  and  actions  like  these  establish 
new  standards  that  other  arcade  design- 
ers and  programmers  will  be  hustling  to 
match.  All  this  is  done  using  beautifully 
sculptured  graphics,  digitized  sounds  and 
real-time  speed. 

I  wouldn't  be  earning  my  money  if  I 
couldn't  find  something  about  the  game 
which  I  didn't  like.  Here's  my  complaint- 
explosive  mines.  Each  tank  carries  and 
can  plant  mines  which  will  be  activated 
when  your  opponent  gets  too  near.  These 
are  seeded  by  a  particular  sequence  of 
joystick  movements— you  stop  the  tank. 


press  the  fire  button  and  shift  into  re- 
verse. If  all  goes  well,  a  grey  cylinder  with 
a  dark  triggering  button  appears  on  the 
ground.  You  can  plant  these  around  your 
headquarters'  flag  (your  opponent's  tar- 
get), and  around  gates  or  breaches  in  your 
defense  walls. 

If  done  right,  mine  fields  can  greatly  in- 
crease your  defenses  and  frustrate  your 
opponent.  But  I've  found  they  destroy  my 
tanks  more  often  than  my  opponents'.  I 
have  never  quite  mastered  the  command 
sequence.  I  usually  drop  a  mine  by  acci- 
dent in  the  heat  of  maneuvering  and  end 
up  blowing  my  own  tank  off  the  map  rath- 
er than  my  enemy's.  I  would  have  pre- 
ferred a  keyboard  command  (like  press  M 
to  drop  mine)  rather  than  the  dangerous 
joystick  signal.  Another  complaint  is  that 
there  is  no  way  to  diffuse  a  mine  leven 
cannon  fire  will  not  destroy  them)  without 
touching  it. 

Hopefully,  any  new  releases  of  Fire 
Power  will  either  reroute  the  "drop  mine" 
command  or  simply  remove  mines  from 
the  arsenal  of  weapons.  Still,  on  a  scale  of 
one  to  ten,  I  would  giveFj'/i?  Power  a  9.5.  It 
is  a  top-notch  game  at  an  affordable  price. 
It  has  earned  a  permanent  slot  on  my  soft- 
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Video  Editing 


We've  all  seen  scenes  of  video  editing 
suites.  The  editor  has  a  control  pan- 
el in  front  of  him  that  looks  like  it  could  be 
used  to  maneuver  a  747,  and  images  on 
half  a  dozen  monitors  compete  for  atten- 
tion. Several  hundred  thousand  dollars 
worth  of  hardware  is  rack  mounted  on  the 
walls;  the  overriding  feeling  is  expensive. 

Video  editing  can  be  a  costly  endeavor, 
but  it  doesn't  have  to  be.  You  can  get  re- 
sults from  acceptable  to  excellent  with 
home  equipment  and  a  shoestring  budget. 
It  is,  however,  important  to  understand 
the  basics  of  editing  before  you  begin. 

Video  tape  recording  got  its  start  in  the 
fifties  as  a  spinoff  of  the  audio  tape  record- 
er. Preliminary  research  had  shown  that 
some  means  had  to  be  devised  to  handle 
the  higher  information  density  that  video 
required.  At  first  researchers  tried  speed- 
ing up  the  rate  at  which  tape  passed  the 
recording  head.  At  one  point  an  early 
RCA  prototype  ran  tape  at  30  feet  per  sec- 
ond, using  up  over  a  mile  of  tape  to  record 
four  minutes  of  material. 

Ampex  solved  the  problem  by  designing 
rotating  recording  and  playback  beads 
that  increased  the  density  of  infoiTnation 
on  the  tape  while  keeping  tape  speeds  rea- 
sonable. In  1959  "Toshiba  introduced  heli- 
cal scanning  heads,  the  technology  used 
in  VCRs  today. 

The  helical  scanning  head  works  by  re- 
cording a  full  field  of  video  as  a  single 
slanted  video  track  running  across  the 
videotape  (See  Dlustration  li.  The  video 
track  is  almost  four  inches  in  length;  this 
is  accomplished  by  wrapping  the  video- 
tape around  the  head  drum  just  over  half- 
way (See  Illustration  2).  Each  head  drum 
has  two  recording  heads,  and  each  head 
records  a  video  field  at  a  time.  The  fields 
are  interleaved  on  the  tape  just  as  they 
are  when  displayed  on  the  screen. 

Additional  information  is  also  recorded 
on  the  videotape.  Audio  tracks  are  record- 
ed by  separate  linear  audio  recording 
heads,  and  a  control  track  of  magnetic 
pulses  spaced  at  even  intervals  is  placed 
at  the  bottom  of  the  tape.  The  control 
track  is  used  to  tell  the  VCR  the  location 
of  each  frame  of  picture  information. 

Take  another  look  at  Illustration  2.  No- 
tice the  location  of  the  bulk  erasehead  It 
is  located  separately  from  the  video  re- 
cording heads.  It  is  used  to  erase  every- 
thing on  the  videotape,  and  it  does  so  as 


by  Matthew  Leeds 


/ 

■ 

■--"■■■ 

J 

v         y 

... 

Several  companies  have 
announced  hardware  and/or 
software  that  will  let  the 
Amiga  act  as  an  edit 
controller. 

the  tape  passes  by  it.  Since  it  does  not  ro- 
tate, it  erases  not  on  a  diagonal  (the  way 
the  rotating  video  heads  record  I  but  per- 
pendicularly to  the  tape  direction.  This  re- 
sults in  video  tracks  at  the  start  and  end- 
ing points  of  erasure  that  have  been  only 
partly  erased  (See  Dlustration  3). 

The  video  sync  signals  that  are  a  part  of 
the  video  information  are  disrupted  by  the 
partly  erased  video  tracks.  If  your  VCR 
does  not  tecreate  the  exact  sync  start 
point  when  it  rerecords  over  the  erased 
portion  you  will  get  a  "glitch."  You  will 
also  get  a  glitch  if  you  record  video  over 
video.  Since  most  VCRs  back  up  slightly 
when  you  pause  while  recording,  and  the 
bulk  erase  head  is  too  far  away  from  the 
recording  heads  to  erase  the  portion  of  the 
tape  backed  up,  you  get  a  glitch.  You  can 
also  get  a  glitch  if  the  control  track  is  not 
contiguous. 

All  of  these  problems  can  be  solved  by 


Illustration  2 


using  a  VCR  that  has  flying  erase  heads. 
These  are  video  erase  heads  that  are  on 
the  rotating  video  drum  along  with  the  re- 
cording heads.  These  flying  erase  heads 
erase  only  the  video  tracks,  and  do  so  in 
the  same  diagonal  partem  in  which  they 
were  recorded.  No  backspacing  is  re- 
quired, and  the  edits  are  more  accurate. 

Flying  erase  heads  can  be  found  on 
many  8mm  video  systems,  some  high-end 
Beta  systems,  and  on  at  least  one  VHS 
system,  the  Panasonic  AG1950.  Some 
VCRs  that  do  not  have  flying  erase  heads 
offer  a  feature  called  video  insert  or  video 
dub.  This  feature  turns  off  the  bulk  erase 
head  and  records  directly  on  top  of  the  ex- 
isting video  signal  by  applying  a  stronger 
recording  signal  to  overwrite  the  existing 
information,  This  can  only  be  used  once, 
as  the  stronger  signal  used  to  overwrite 
the  first  signal  cannot  be  overwritten  it- 
self. 

The  simplest  form  of  editing  requires  a 
single  VCR  with  record  capability,  and  a 
playback  VCR.  You  connect  your  record- 
ing VCR  to  the  playback  VCR,  connect  a 
monitor  to  the  playback  VCR,  and  put  the 
video  cassette  that  contains  your  original 
tape  into  the  playback  VCR.  Roll  the  tape 
to  the  first  scene  you  want  to  dub  to  your 
recording  VCR  (make  sure  you  have  a 
blank  tape  in  it),  pause  the  tape,  put  your 


82    AUGUST  1988 


Amiga  Update  /Video  Editing 

recording  VCR  into  record  and  pause  si- 
multaneously, then  take  both  VCRs  off 
pause  at  the  same  time.  Put  the  recording 
VCR  on  pause  when  you've  recorded  all  of 
the  first  scene.  Now  find  the  next  scene 
you  want  on  your  playback  VCR,  pause  it, 
then  start  both  VCRs  at  the  same  time 
again. 

Although  this  will  work,  it's  a  lot  of 
work,  and  the  edits  will  not  be  clean.  Since 
VCRs  have  moving  parts  (the  tape  trans- 
port) it  takes  a  few  moments  for  them  to 
come  up  to  speed.  The  playback  VCR  will 
not  be  producing  a  clean  signal  until  it 
gets  up  to  speed.  It  would  be  better  to  start 
the  playback  VCR  rolling,  wait  until  the 
new  scene  just  starts  and  then  start  the  re- 
cording VCR.  This  is  called  preroll. 

This  would  all  be  much  easier  if  it  were 
automated.  That  is,  if  there  were  some 
way  to  control  the  playback  and  record 
VCRs  without  having  to  manually  start 
and  stop  them.  There  is  a  way  by  using  a 
device  called  an  edit  controller.  The  edit 
controller  plugs  into  both  VCRs  and  lets 
you  set  up  edits  from  a  single  keyboard. 
Edit  controllers  let  you  monitor  tape  posi- 
tion both  from  the  scene  displayed  on  the 
preview  monitor  and  via  a  numeric  read- 
out of  the  control  track.  Most  VCRs  have 
a  Control  L  jack  on  their  back  panel  that 
interfaces  to  an  edit  controller. 

Some  edit  controllers  can  store  a  series 
of  edits  and  perform  them  sequentially. 
These  editors  store  an  edit  fist  of  the  be- 
ginning and  ending  points  of  scenes  you 
want  to  assemble  on  an  edited  tape.  Once 
you  have  set  up  your  edit  list  by  preview- 
ing each  scene  and  queuing  the  edit  con- 
troller, the  edit  controller  will  assemble 
your  edited  copy  automatically.  If  you 
want  to  change  an  edit  or  a  sequence  of 
edits,  just  change  the  edit  list  and  let  the 
edit  controller  re-assemble  a  new  edited 
copy. 

Several  companies  have  announced 
hardware  and/or  software  that  will  let  the 
Amiga  act  as  an  edit  controller.  Prism 
Computer  Graphics,  Mimetics,  and  Inter- 
active MicroSystems  are  some  of  the  com- 
panies that  either  have  products  on  the 
market  or  are  about  to  release  products. 

Edit  controllers  and  edit  lists  are  only 
as  accurate  as  the  control  information 
they  use.  Simple  edit  controllers  use  the 
control  track  laid  down  by  your  VCR.  This 
is  just  a  simple  set  of  pulses  with  no  nu- 
meric indexing  information.  If  the  VCR 
loses  count  of  a  control  pulse,  the  indexing 
becomes  inaccurate. 

'lb  better  understand  control  track  in- 
formation and  how  it  is  used,  we  need  to 


You  can  create  some  simple 
transitions  with  a  single 
playback  deck  and  your 
Amiga  equipped  with  a 
genlock. 


look  at  the  difference  between  VHS,  Beta, 
and  8mm  videotape  systems.  The  impor- 
tant difference  is  in  how  the  tape  is  han- 
dled during  rewind  and  fast  forward.  In 
VHS  systems  the  tape  is  unwound  from 
the  video  drum  during  fast  rewind  or  fast 
forward.  This  causes  loss  of  contact  with 
the  control  head  and  loss  of  control  pulse 
count.  Beta  and  8mm  systems  do  not  un- 
wind the  videotape  from  the  video  drum 
and  therefore  maintain  a  consistent  con- 
trol pulse  count. 

A  new  VHS  system  called  Quick  Start 
has  been  introduced  that  does  not  unwind 
the  videotape  from  the  video  drum.  Ori- 
ginally introduced  by  Akai,  Quick  Start  is 
likely  to  migrate  to  all  S-VHS  systems 
soon.  Along  with  Quick  Start  a  new  index- 
ing system  introduced  by  JVC,  called 
CTL,  will  add  the  ability  to  find  up  to 
9,999  designated  addresses  on  a  tape. 
These  addresses  are  coded  directly  in  the 
control  track  and  do  not  require  counting 
control  pulses  to  find  an  address.  The  CTL 
system  will  also  allow  for  a  real-time  rea- 
dout in  hours,  minutes  and  seconds  in- 
stead of  just  looking  at  the  tape  counter. 

Professional  editing  systems  use  a  con- 
trol system  called  SMPTE  Time  Code. 
SMPTE  encodes  a  unique  identification 
for  every  frame  of  video.  This  lets  an  edi- 
tor find  the  exact  edit  point  without  count- 
ing control  pulses;  it  also  allows  an  edit 
list  to  be  constructed  without  using  the 
same  editing  equipment  required  to  actu- 
ally perform  the  edits.  Access  to  high-end 
editing  systems  is  billed  m  the  hundreds 
of  dollars  per  hour,  and  preparing  edit  lists 
off-line  can  save  quite  a  bit  of  money. 

Up  to  now  I've  discussed  a  "simple  cuts 
only"  setup.  Each  scene  cuts  to  the  next 
without  any  type  of  transition  effect.  You 
can  create  some  simple  transitions  with  x 
single  playback  deck  and  your  Amiga 
equipped  with  a  genlock.  Use  a  paint  pro- 
gram that  supports  overscan  and  color  cy- 
cling to  create  a  full  screen  pattern  that 
will  cycle  from  a  solid  screen  of  color  0  to 
some  other  color.  Color  0  is  the  color  that 
your  live  video  will  replace.  By  playing 
your  source  deck  through  the  genlock  and 
starting  the  color  cycle  when  you  want  to 


create  your  transition  effect  you  can  wipe 
from  live  video  to  some  color  or  pattern. 
This  technique  will  not  let  you  wipe  from 
one  video  source  to  another,  but  it  will  let 
you  create  some  interesting  and  beautiful 
transitions. 

You  can  also  create  simple  transitions 
by  just  fading  to  black  in  the  camera  at 
the  beginning  and  end  of  each  scene  when 
you  film  your  original  tape.  If  you  want  to 
wipe  from  one  live  video  source  to  another 
you  will  need  some  additional  equipment. 
This  type  of  edit  is  called  an  A/B  roll.  You 
will  need  a  second  source  deck,  a  genlock- 
able  dual  channel  time  base  corrector  and 
either  an  edit  controller  or  switcher  that 
can  do  A/B  rolls.  We  are  talking  about  a 
large  investment  here,  and  not  one  that  a 
non-professional  is  likely  to  make. 

If  you  are  interested  in  this  kind  of  ca- 
pability you  should  consider  renting  edit- 
ing equipment.  There  are  fully  equipped 
editing  hays  available  for  rental  in  most 
large  cities.  A  full-blown  A/B  roll  editing 
bay  for  1/2  inch  videotape  can  be  rented 
for  as  little  as  $30/hour.  Standard-cuts- 
only  bays  are  available  for  as  little  as 
$12.50/hour  from  Video  Workshop,  a  fran- 
chise service  organization  rapidly  expand- 
ing across  the  U.S. 

Regardless  of  the  equipment  you  use, 
there  are  problems  that  occur  in  multi- 
generational  videotapes.  Every  time  you 
copy  a  tape  the  new  generation  will  have 
less  color  saturation,  less  sharpness  and 
resolution  and  less  definition.  There  is 
nothing  you  can  do  to  completely  prevent 
this  from  occurring,  but  you  can  minimize 
the  losses.  Most  VCRs  boost  the  video  sig- 
nal on  the  videotape  during  playback. 
This  improves  the  image  on  your  monitor 
or  TV,  but  it  can  overload  your  recording 
VCR  during  editing.  Newer  VCRs  have  a 
switch  that  turns  off  this  equalization, 
called  an  edit  or  dub  switch.  There  are  vid- 
eo enhancing  boxes  that  can  correct  color 
balance,  improve  sharpness  or  otherwise 
attempt  to  minimize  generational  loss.  It 
is  important  to  remember  that  every  piece 
of  equipment  that  your  video  signal 
passes  through  will  cause  some  loss  of 
some  portion  of  the  video  information. 

You  can  achieve  the  best  results  by  us- 
ing high  grade  videotape,  recording  and 
editing  onto  either  brand  new  tape  or  only 
slightly  used  tape,  recording  and  editing 
at  the  fastest  speed  your  VCRs  will  sup- 
port, and  keeping  the  number  of  genera- 
tions to  a  minimum.  If  you  want  to  gain 
au*=5S  to  piufessional-level  editing  equip- 
ment without  paying  professional  prices, 
consider  taking  a  video  editing  class  at 
your  local  college.  Q 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE     83 


/\MJ(.7\  UPDATE 

Amiga  Public 

Domain 

Update 


Finally  Fred  Fish  has  returned  to  the 
Amiga  PD  scene,  with  the  release  of 
Fish  disks  129-138.  (It's  nice  to  have  you 
back,  Fred!)  As  for  the  pick  of  the  litter 
this  month,  there  has  been  an  important 
update  to  VirusX,  the  premier  virus  detec- 
tion program.  Also  reviewed  this  month 
are  OverScan,  which  allows  European 
Amiga  owners  to  strike  back  against 
American  programmers  who  don't  allow 
for  PAL  screens,  and  Evo,  an  educational 
program  about  the  history  of  man. 

For  each  program,  the  author  is  given 
(when  known)  along  with  the  series  num- 
ber if  that  PD  program  is  available  on  the 
Fish  series.  Also  if  I  get  a  PD  program  di- 
rectly from  PeopleLinks  AmigaZone,  1  list 
the  AmigaZone  download  file  number,  so 
those  of  you  who  have  access  to  People- 
Link  can  quickly  obtain  this  file.  (If  no  file 
number  is  given,  the  program  may  still  be 
on  PeopleLink,  but  I  obtained  it  some- 
where else.)  When  a  public  domain  pro- 
gram has  been  classified  as  shareware, 
this  is  also  mentioned  with  the  suggested 
amount. 

Evo:  by  Steve  Bonner  (Fish  130) 

An  interesting  educational  program 
that  shows  the  development  of  man  and 
his  ancestors  over  the  past  20  million 
years.  Nine  different  species  are  discussed 
in  informational  text  files.  Accompanying 
each  text  file  is  a  simple  line  drawing  of 
each  species'  skull,  showing  the  cranial 
differences. 

What  is  really  nice  about  this  program 
is  that  an  interactive  time-line  is  includ- 
ed. The  user  can  move  a  slider  anywhere 
on  the  time-line,  and  a  cranial  drawing 
will  be  displayed  for  the  current  time 
(over  600  drawings  are  programmed  into 
the  program  I. 

Also  included  in  the  program  is  a  glos- 
sary which  explains  some  terms  used  in 
the  text  files,  as  well  as  a  map  of  Africa 
with  noted  locations  of  different  archae- 
ological sites  mentioned  in  the  text  files. 

Hp:  by  Steve  Bonner  (Fish  130) 
Another  button-filled  RPN  (postfix  no- 


by  Graham  Kinsey 


tation)  calculator  program  for  those  who 
are  always  looking  for  a  better  desktop 
calculator,  lip  displays  two  numbers  at  a 
time  in  its  display  window  (or  in  case  of  a 
complex  number  both  the  real  and  imagi- 
nary parts  at  once).  In  addition  to  complex 
nunilwrs,  Hp  also  supports  binary,  hexa- 
decimal, octal  and  decimal  numbers  as 
well  as  floating  point  numbers.  There  is 
an  option  to  send  all  calculator  I/O  to  the 
printer.  Hp  opens  its  own  screen  instead  of 
using  the  Workbench  screen,  so  those  who 
don't  like  constantly  flipping  between 
screens  may  not  like  this  one  very  much. 

QMan;  by  Steve  Bonner  (Fish  130) 

QMan  is  a  simple  Mandelbrot  generat- 
ing program  that  isn't  loaded  with  fea- 
tures, but  it's  written  in  assembly  lan- 
guage. The  speed  increase  may  be  enough 
for  some  to  prefer  this  program  over  other 
Mandelbrot  generators  with  more  fea- 
tures. 

Die:  byTomas  Rokicki  (Fish  131) 

A  nice  little  diskcopy  program.  Dfc  has 
an  Intuition  interface,  although  you  can 
specify  all  parameters  from  CLI  so  that 
you  don't  have  to  fiddle  with  gadgets  if 
you  don't  want  to.  Dfc  will  make  multiple 
copies  of  a  disk  and  will  cache  a  source 
disk  (if  you  don't  have  enough  free  mem- 
ory to  cache  an  entire  source  disk,  Dfc  will 
still  cache  part  of  the  source  disk).  Dfc  also 
formats  disks  in  addition  to  copying  disks. 
And,  of  course,  Dfc  has  a  switch  to  verify 
destination  disks,  like  any  decent  disk- 
copy  program  should  have  (hint,  hint, 
Commodore!). 

iMackie:  by  Tbmas  Rokicki  (Fish  131) 

Another  screen  blanking  program  (this 
one  is  based  on  PopCLI  III).  Mackie  enter- 
tains you  by  drawing  hi-res  moire  pat- 
terns when  the  screen  is  blanked. 

Berserk:  by  Leo  Schwab  (Fish  132) 
This  stunning  animation  was  already 


reviewed  in  the  February  1988  install- 
ment of  this  column.  However,  in  addition 
to  the  animation  itself  on  the  Fish  disk 
lies  all  the  source  code  (i.e.,  the  object  de- 
scriptions). This  not  only  allows  those  who 
own  VideoScape  3-D  to  create  their  own 
variations  of  Berserk,  it  also  allows  you  to 
figure  out  exactly  how  Leo  accomplished 
everything  (for  example,  how  he  made  the 
Boing  balls  compress  when  they  were 
struck  by  the  unicycle). 

Crc:  by  Dan  Kindred  (Fish  133) 

This  program  will  generate  a  16-bit 
CRC  (Cyclic  Redundancy  Check)  for  any 
disk  file.  This  allows  you  to  check  to  see  if 
a  file  has  been  modified  since  it  was  last 
checked.  This  program  will  not  allow  you 
to  check  for  the  presence  of  a  boot-block 
virus,  but  it  can  help  you  to  find  a  virus 
that  attaches  itself  to  the  end  of  a  pro- 
gram. (This  type  of  computer  virus  cur- 
rently doesn't  exist  on  the  Amiga.  Howev- 
er, this  is  the  way  viruses  on  most  other 
computers  are  spread,  so  at  least  you  have 
a  way  to  check  for  such  a  virus  if  one 
shows  up.) 

OverScan;  by  Ari  Freund  (Fish  133) 

If  you're  a  European  Amiga  user  who  is 
frustrated  by  American  programmers 
who  don't  take  PAL  screens  into  account 
when  designing  programs,  now  you  don't 
have  to  be  stymied  by  their  short-sighted- 
ness. OverScan  will  force  any  application 
to  open  screens  that  expand  to  the  full  size 
of  a  PAL  screen.  Windows  that  are  at- 
tached to  this  screen  won't  automatically 
be  resized,  however,  now  they  can  be  re- 
sized to  take  up  the  full  size  of  a  PAL 
screen.  Note  that  this  doesn't  mean  that 
an  application  will  now  actually  intelli- 
gently use  the  extra  area  for  program  op- 
eration. (If  the  program  doesn't  bother  to 
find  out  how  big  the  screen  really  is  in  the 
first  place,  OverScan  can't  force  a  pro- 
gram to  find  out  for  itself)  Although  this 
program  was  designed  with  European 


84    AUGUST  1988 


Amiga  Update/Amiga  Public  Domain 

PAL  systems  in  mind,  it  is  just  as  useful 
for  Americans  who  are  using  MoreRows. 

BoingThrows:  by  Marvin  Landis 
(Fish  134) 

This  is  a  stunning  Sculpt  3-D  anima- 
tion of  a  ray-traced  figure  shooting  free 
throws.  The  author  improved  each  of  the 
frames  by  touching  up  the  graphics  with 
DigiPaint,  and  the  results  speak  for  them- 
selves. Accompanying  the  great  HAM 
graphics  are  some  good  digitized  sounds. 

I  would  have  reviewed  this  program 
months  ago  when  I  first  received  it  from 
PeopleLink,  however,  I  couldn't  get  it  to 
work.  This  is  not  the  animation's  fault, 
but  as  I  found  out  instead,  Byte  by  Byte's 
Movie  player  program  for  Sculpt  anima- 
tions is  a  real  pain  in  the  neck.  For  exam- 
ple, if  you  are  using  MoreRows,  an  anima- 
tion that  isn't  created  using  overscan  sim- 
ply won't  run.  When  you  upset  Movie  the 
results  can  be  quite  frustrating.  Not  only 
does  this  program  have  a  knack  for  crash- 
ing when  not  treated  right,  but  it  also 
holds  the  dubious  distinction  of  being  the 
one  program  that  even  GOMF  2.0  can't 
recover  from  after  a  system  reboot. 


Find:  by  Rodney  Lewis  (Fish  134) 

This  program,  which  is  similar  to  the 
Unix  Find  program,  is  superior  to  the 
AmigaDOS  DIR  command.  In  addition  to 
supporting  Unix-style  wildcarding,  Find 
will  list  files  that  are  a  certain  age,  files 
that  have  certain  protection  bits  (the  r,  e, 
w  or  d  bits)  set,  or  files  that  are  a  certain 
size.  Find  will  also  allow  you  to  execute  a 
command  acting  on  each  file  that  matches 
the  particular  wildcard  or  other  boolean 
expression  'the  command  execution  can 
be  automatic,  or  it  can  query  you  for  ex- 
ecution on  each  candidate  file).  Find  sup- 
ports multiple  devices,  so  you  can  search 
for  files  on  multiple  floppy  drives,  for  ex- 
ample. Since  each  expression  is  a  boolean, 
you  can  search  with  boolean  expressions 
using  NOT,  AND  or  OR,  in  addition  to  a 
simple  match. 

Library:  by  Bill  Brownson 
(Fish  134;  Shareware:  $30) 

This  is  a  demo  of  a  quasi-database  text- 
utility  program  that  allows  you  to  perform 
searches  inside  a  text  file.  It  allows  for 
AND,  OR  or  NOT  boolean  expressions  to 
search  for  a  text  string  inside  a  file. 

Smartlcon:  by  Gauthier  Groult 
(Fish  134;  Shareware:  $15) 

This  is  for  those  of  you  who  wished  you 
could  use  the  nifty  feature  provided  by 


Leo  Schwab's  Iconify  program  (reviewed 
in  the  May  1988  installment  of  this  col- 
umn), but  don't  know  how  to  program. 
Gauthier's  Smartlcon  allows  you  to  add  a 
gadget  to  any  window  that  when  selected 
i  will  "iconify"  that  window.  Even  better  is 
the  fact  that  the  icon  appears  not  at  the 
corner  of  the  screen,  but  inside  the  RAM 
disk  icon  on  the  Workbench  screen.  And 
yes,  just  like  Leo's  program,  Smartlcon 
will  actually  display  graphics  inside  the 
iconified  window  (for  example,  the  old 
Dotty  and  Lines  demos  on  the  Workbench 
disk). 

TeXF:  by  Ali  Ozer  (Fish  135) 

Are  you  looking  for  more  fonts  to  use 
with  your  graphics  programs?  Well,  TeXF 
is  a  program  that  will  convert  AmigaTeX 
fonts  to  the  standard  Amiga  fonts  format. 
What  if  you  don't  own  AmigaTeX  in  the 
first  place?  Well  also  on  this  disk  are  a  to- 
tal of  78  AmigaTeX  fonts  (22  fonts  in  dif- 
ferent sizes).  And  if  you  know  someone 
who  does  own  AmigaTeX,  you  can  now  ob- 
tain over  1000  different  fonts  to  freely  use 
with  your  own  programs! 

Paste:  by  David  Dinat  (Fish  136) 

This  is  a  port  of  the  UNIX  Paste  com- 
mand. Paste  merges  text  files,  but  instead 
of  working  with  whole  text  files  at  a  time, 
Paste  works  with  individual  lines  from 
each  text  file. 

Ct:  by  Jonathan  Harman  (Fish  137) 

This  program  will  display  images  from 
CT  medical  scanners  (which  are  stored  as 
256  x  256  pixel  images  in  2048  shades  of 
gray).  Many  features  are  provided  includ- 
ing zooming,  color  mapping  and  many  im- 
age processing  operations. 

VGad:  by  Stephen  Vermulen  (Fish  137) 
This  is  a  nice  tool  for  commercial  pro- 
grammers who  would  like  to  farm  out  de- 
sign of  icons  to  artists  and  quickly  convert 
the  finished  work  into  C  source  code. 
VGad  accepts  an  IFF  picture  instead  of  an 
IFF  brush  (which  saves  a  little  work). 
VGad  takes  as  input  two  IFF  pictures,  one 
for  the  normal  icon  state  and  one  for  the 
alternate  image  (selected  state),  and  out- 
puts a  C  source  file  and  a  C  header  file. 

VLabel:  by  Stephen  Vermulen  (Fish  137) 
If  you  would  like  an  easy  way  to  print 
fancy  disk  labels,  check  out  VLabel.  VLa- 
bel will  print  any  two-color  IFF  picture  in 
addition  to  up  to  50  lines  of  text.  The  text 
may  be  printed  using  any  font  that  is 
available.  The  text  file  can  be  in  the  form 
of  a  Superbase  database  ASCII  file. 


AmigaLine:  by  Bryce  Nesbitt  (Fish  138) 
Here  is  a  set  of  small  but  still  quite  in- 
formative text  files  relating  to  various 
programming  topics.  Covered  subjects  in- 
clude multiple  serial  ports,  figuring  out 
the  current  stack  size,  getting  input  from 
the  keyboard  and  calculating  AmigaDOS 
hash  values. 

Grocery  List:  by  Hal  Carter 
(Shareware:  $10) 

For  those  who  would  like  their  Amiga 
to  help  plan  a  trip  to  the  supermarket, 
Grocery  List  is  a  powerful  program  that 
does  more  than  just  allow  you  to  print  a 
selection  of  items  that  you  need  to  pick  up 
this  week. 

Half-OS:  by  Leo  Schwab 

(AmigaZone  file  #11387) 

A  cute  VideoScape  3-D  animation 
which  is  a  "play  on  words"  concerning  the 
much  hallowed  (and  cursed)  operating 
system  OS/2.  Maybe  this  animation  will 
make  people  think  twice  about  naming 
products  in  order  to  assure  that  such  jokes 
can't  be  made  . . . 

M.Made:  by  Keith  Doyle 
(AmigaZone  file  #11233) 

This  is  Machine  Made,  a  wacky  50s- 
style  animation  created  with  The  Director. 

Access!  version  1.30a:  (AmigaZone  file 
#11351;  Shareware:  $25) 

Version  1.30a  of  Access!,  a  16-color  ter- 
minal program  last  reviewed  in  the  May 
1988  installment  of  this  column.  New  fea- 
tures in  this  version  of  Access  include  a 
line  editor  in  chat  mode,  an  overall  257f 
speed  increase  in  file  transfer  rate  and  a 
limited  script  capability.  Now  you  can  also 
choose  to  use  only  four  colors  with  Access! 
This  is  a  nice  feature  for  those  who  don't 
care  about  pretty  colore  and  just  want  to 
get  down  to  business,  since  it  speeds 
things  up  as  well  as  saving  22K  of  CHIP 
RAM. 

Please  note  that  I  am  reviewing  revi- 
sion A  of  Access!  version  1.30.  This  ver- 
sion fixes  a  major  bug  in  the  Xmodem  pro- 
tocol that  made  it  very  tough  to  download 
successfully  using  standard  Xmodem.  If 
you  download  this  program  from  a  BBS 
make  sure  to  get  Access!  version  1.30a. 
Improvements  have  been  made  to  the 
CompuServe  B  protocol.  As  usual  there 
are  many  other  small  improvements. 

Pyro:  by  Steve  Jacobs  and  Jim  Boyd 
(AmigaZone  file  #11290) 

If  you  weren't  impressed  with  the 
graphics  entertainment  provided  by 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE    85 


Amiga  Update/Amiga  Public  Domain 

Mackie,  then  give  this  screen-blanker  a 
try.  P}to  entertains  you  with  a  fireworks 
display  (sorry,  no  sound  yet).  Unfortunate- 
ly the  blanking  interval  with  this  pro- 
gram IS  fixed  at  five  minutes. 

BadMax:  by  Mike  Jones 
(AmigaZone  file  #11366) 

If  you  like  the  "Road  Warrior  series  of 
movies  and  like  to  put  down  other  com- 
puters, this  animation  will  suit  you  just 
fine.  BadMax  has  sound  effects  and  was 
created  with  The  Director,  Note  that  the 
author  requires  that  you  obtain  an  older 
version  of  the  sound.mod  file  that  usually 
accompanies  The  Directors  Projector  play- 
er program,  since  the  animation  will  not 
run  correctly  with  the  newest  version.  The 
author  claims  he  upioaded  the  old 
sound.mod  file  to  PeopleLink.  although  I 
couldn't  find  it  myself.  (I  just  grabbed  it 
from  an  older  Director  animation.  I 

Battleship:  by  Steve  Berry 

An  Amiga  version  of  the  classic  strate- 
gy game  Battleship,  complete  with  great 
digitized  sounds.  This  program  was  writ- 
ten in  Multi-Forth.  This  version  has  a  ma- 
jor bug  in  that  you  are  not  actually  forced 
to  put  the  different  parts  of  each  ship  next 
to  each  other,  so  in  eflect  you  can  have  five 
aircraft  carriers  with  a  length  of  one 
square  instead  of  one  carrier  that  is  five 
squares  long. 

BitPlanes:  by  David  Pochron 
(AmigaZone  file  #11283) 

Would  you  like  to  have  as  many  colors 
as  possible  in  your  Amiga  environment? 
Does  the  four-color  Workbench  bore  you  a 
bit?  With  BitPlanes  you  can  easily  trans- 
form the  Workbench  environment  into  an 
eight-  or  even  16-color  screen.  The  author 
advises  against  using  a  four-bitplane 
Workbench,  since  the  system  slows  to  .1 
crawl,  and  many  icon  editors  will  only 
work  with  a  maximum  of  three  bitplanes. 
The  author  provides  a  lew  eight-color 
icons  to  get  you  stalled,  as  well  as  a  16- 
color  icon  to  look  at  (the  "Lauren"  girl  who 
was  made  famous  in  the  first  set  of 
DigiView  demo  HAM  pictures  back  in 
early  1986). 

CVKA:  author  unknown 
(AmigaZone  file  #11230) 

This  is  an  AmigaBASIC  program  that 
determines  cardiovascular  risk.  It  asks 
you  many  questions,  including  blood  pres- 
sure, stress  level,  family  histories  of  diabe 
tes  and  heart  disease,  cholesterol  level 
and  exercise  activity.  CVRA  will  then 


make  an  estimate  of  how  vulnerable  you 
are  to  cardiovascular  disease  and  give 
suggestions  to  ivduce  your  risk  depending 
on  your  particular  circumstances. 

DFilter:  author  unknown 

(AmigaZone  file  #11149) 

If  you  own  or  have  access  to  any  pic- 
tures created  or  modified  with  either  Pho- 
ton Paint  or  Parnate,  this  program  can 
save  you  some  grief  Although  these  pro- 
grams do  save  pictures  in  the  standard 
IFF  ILBM  format,  they  save  certain 
chunks  in  strange  ways  that  can  cause 
havoc  with  many  IFF  ILBM  viewing  pro- 
grams. DFilter  will  reorganize  the  chunks 
in  such  an  IFF  ILBM  file,  so  you  c;in  free- 
ly display  the  picture  with  any  display 
program. 

Type:  by  John  Gerlach  Jr: 
(AmigaZone  file  #11281) 

Even  though  you  use  a  computer  to 
type  with  now.  do  you  still  miss  your  type- 
writer? Type  will  allow  your  printer  to 
emulate  a  typewriter.  Typewriter  allows 
you  to  switch  between  "computer"  and 
"typewriter"  modes  freely.  (WARNING: 
when  loading  this  program  my  error  han- 
dler iGOMF  2.0)  reports  that  Type  at- 
tempts to  trash  the  lowr  area  of  system 
memory.  Therefore,  use  this  program  at 
your  own  risk.! 

YirusX  version  1.21:  by  Steve  Tibbett 
(AmigaZone  file  #11298) 

This  is  VirusX  version  1.21,  a  very  im- 
jxjit^mt  program  to  have,  since  it  is  cur- 
rently the  best  program  available  for  de- 
tection and  now  removal  of  Amiga  boot- 
block  viruses.  This  version  is  an  update  to 
the  version  of  VirusX  reviewed  in  last 
month's  column. 

The  only  improvement  in  version  1.21 
of  VirusX  is  that  it  now  specifically  checks 
for  the  malicious  Byte  Bandit  virus.  This 
is  a  new  virus  with  no  relation  to  the  SCA 
Virus  reported  on  in  the  June  1988  in- 
stallment of  this  column.  The  Byte  Bandit 
virus  makes  the  SCA  virus  look  like  an 
angel  in  comparison.  First  of  all.  although 
the  Byte  Bandit  virus  lives  in  the  boot 
block  just  like  the  SCA  Virus,  the  similar- 
ities end  there.  The  Byte  Bandit  virus 
does  not  require  a  warm  or  cold  stall  to 
enter  your  machine:  as  soon  as  you  insert 
a  disk  with  the  Byte  Bandit  virus,  it  will 
immediately  install  itself  inside  your 
Amiga.  Also  the  Byte  Bandit  virus  does 
not  require  a  warm  boot  in  order  to 
spread:  any  time  you  insert  a  disk  into  a 
drive,  the  Byte  Bandit  virus  in  memory 
will  automatically  attempt  to  write  itself 


to  that  disk. 

If  this  weren't  bad  enough,  if  you  use 
the  AmigaDOS  INSTALL  command  to 
eliminate  a  copy  of  the  Byte  Bandit  vims 
on  a  disk,  the  copy  in  memory  will  imme- 
diately re-write  itself  to  the  disk  that  you 
just  INSTALLed. 

This  virus  can  truly  be  called  destruc- 
tive, unlike  the  SCA  virus  which  was  not 
meant  to  be  harmful.  The  Byte  Bandit 
will  periodically  lock  up  your  machine, 
causing  you  to  reboot  your  Amiga  (and  al- 
though 1  haven't  been  infected  with  this 
virus  myself  yet,  I  suspect  that  GOMF  2.0 
will  not  be  able  to  save  your  system  from  a 
reboot.  I. 

Enough  of  the  bad  news,  here's  the  good 
news.  Not  only  will  VirusX  1.21  tell  you  if 
you  have  a  disk  infected  with  a  copy  of  the 
Byte  Bandit  virus,  but  VirusX  will  also 
eliminate  any  presence  of  the  Byte  Bandit 
virus  in  memory,  which  must  be  done  if 
you  want  to  completely  purge  it  from  all 
your  disks.  I  can't  overemphasize  that  this 
program  is  one  that  every  Amiga  user 
must  have. 

FixVDK:  by  Dan  James 

(AmigaZone  file  #11418) 

This  program  fixes  some  bugs  in  the 
commercial  recoverable  RAMdisk  pro- 
gram VDK  from  Expansion  Technologies. 
Among  the  bugs  fixed  are  improper  date 
setting,  improper  reporting  of  block  size, 
and  destroying  protection  bits  for  each 
file. 

Unfortunately  I  wasn't  able  to  review 
all  the  programs  I  received  off  of  People- 
Link's  AmigaZone  this  month  due  to  time 
constraints,  but  I  will  catch  up  next 
month  on  the  ones  I  missed. 

As  always,  I  can  be  reached  on  the 
Amiga  Zone  on  PeopleLink  (ID:  G 
KLNSEY),  or  on  the  IDCMP  BBS  (617) 
769-3172  (please  note  the  new  number!/, 
now  running  24  horn's  a  day,  addressed  to 
SYSOP.  If  you  have  written  a  public  do- 
main'sharewaix.'/fively  distributable  pro- 
gram, or  have  obtained  one  that  you  think 
is  worth  mentioning  to  all  Amiga  owners, 
then  please  attempt  to  contact  me  via  the 
above  or  through  Commodore  Magazine. 
See  you  next  month. 

Fish  dish:  For  a  catalog,  send  a  SASE 
and  four  loose  damps  or  $1  to:  Fred  Fish. 
1346  W.  10th  Place,  Tempe,  AZ  85281. 

To  sign  up  to  PeopleLink  and  their 
AmigaZone,  call  (800)  5244)100  (voice)  or 
(800)  826-8855  (via  modem). 

m 


86    AUGUST  1988 


/WUO^UPDATE 


by  Tim  Jones 


AmigaBASIC  Tutorial 


From  time  to  time,  I  am  challenged  about  my  use  of  Amiga- 
BASIC for  various  serious  projects  that  I  may  be  undertak- 
ing on  the  Amiga.  And  one  of  the  biggest  complaints  that  I  hear 
is  something  in  the  order  of  " , .  .but  AmigaBASIC  hogs  the 
CPU  while  you  are  running  an  application  and  really  cripples 
the  multitasking  of  the  machine."  Well,  there  are  ways  around 
this.  In  this  installment,  let's  take  a  look  at  a  simple  function 
that  keeps  your  AmigaBASIC  application  from  hogging  the 
Amiga's  CPU:  SLEEP. 

While  working  with  some  business  software  recently,  I  was 
bothered  by  the  time  I  was  wasting  waiting  for  a  document  and 
a  couple  of  spreadsheet  pages  to  print.  I  knew  that  printing  a 
document  or  spreadsheet  to  disk  or  RAM:  would  be  a  lot  faster 
than  to  the  printer,  but  I  had  to  find  a  program  that  would  run 
in  the  background  and  watch  for  files  and  then  print  them  if 
they  existed. 

I  started  browsing  my  public  domain  disks  for  a  printer 
spooler,  a  program  that  would  control  the  printing  of  files  in  the 
background  while  I  used  my  computer  for  other  tasks.  The  ones 
I  found,  however,  were  generally  no  more  effective  than  using 
the  AmigaBOS  JOIN  command.  This  meant  I  had  to  move  out 
of  my  word  processor  or  spreadsheet  and  enter  a  command  like: 

RUN  SPOOL  filel  file2  file3  etc. 

This  wasn't  exactly  helpful,  so  I  decided  to  take  a  look  at  writ- 
ing one.  The  key  features  that  I  had  to  keep  in  mind  were  how  to 
keep  track  of  the  files  to  print  and  how  to  prevent  the  spooler 
from  printing  a  file  a  second  time  without  actually  deleting  it 
after  the  first  printing.  Also,  the  spooler  had  to  use  a  minimum 
of  CPU  time  to  make  it  friendly  to  other  programs  in  a  multi- 
tasking environment. 

The  first  situation  could  be  answered  by  placing  all  of  the  files 
to  be  printed  into  a  specific  directory  and  then  monitor  that  di- 
rectory for  the  existence  of  files.  This  one  should  be  easy  enough; 
just  look  into  the  specified  directory  once  in  a  while  and  print 
any  file  that  was  there. 

FIRST  CATCH!  When  I  sent  the  first  test  file  to  the  directory, 
my  spreadsheet  also  created  a  .info  ICON  for  the  printed  file, 
which  the  spooler  then  tried  to  print,  really  spoiling  my  evening. 
The  printer  locks  up,  and  eventually  I  am  greeted  by  the  nefar- 
ious GURU.  Okay,  let's  try  a  specific  extension  for  the  file- 
names, then,  lb  keep  things  simple,  I  chose  ".PRT".  Therefore, 
all  files  to  be  printed  had  to  have  ".PET"  tacked  onto  the  end.  It 
worked,  the  .info  files  didn't  get  printed! 

Next,  how  could  I  stop  the  files  from  being  reprinted?  Renam- 
ing would  be  the  simplest  answer  (who  knows,  I  might  want  the 
file  again),  so  I  chose  ".DONE"  as  the  new  extension.  Well,  I  had 
been  doing  things  in  straight  BASIC  before,  but  realized  that  to 
change  the  extension  of  a  file  was  asking  for  trouble.  Since  BA- 
SIC doesn't  directly  support  wildcarding,  I  had  to  move  back  to  a 
library  environment  and  use  the  AmigaDOS  function  Executed 
to  perform  the  renames  via  AmigaDOS,  instead  of  Amiga- 
BASIC. 

To  use  Executed  from  AmigaBASIC,  you  must  open  the  DOS 
library  via  the  dos.bmap  file  that  should  be  on  your  EXTRAS 
disk  in  the  BasicDemos  directory.  Place  this  file  (and  any  other 
.bmap  files  for  that  matter)  into  the  LIBS:  directory  of  the  SYS: 
disk  that  you  use  while  programming  in  BASIC. 


To  actually  call  Execute! ),  you  need  to  introduce  it  to  your  pro- 
gram, so  it  is  not  thought  of  as  an  undefined  array  when  called, 
via  a  DECLARE  FUNCTION  Executed  LIBRARY  statement. 
While  we're  at  it,  let's  simplify  the  finding  of  a  file  by  using 
DOS'  Lock( )  and  UnLockl )  functions.  Since  Lock( )  returns  a  val- 
ue, it  must  also  be  declared  in  a  DECLARE  FUNCTION  state- 
ment. The  key  to  remember  when  using  these  functions  is  to  en- 
sure that  any  string  variables  passed  via  the  SADD  function  are 
terminated  with  a  NULL  (CHRS(O)). 

The  third,  and  biggest  problem  was  time-sharing  of  the  CPU. 
How  could  I  convince  AmigaBASIC  to  let  the  program  lie  dor- 
mant (relatively)  while  it  wasn't  actually  being  used?  It  turns 
out  that  TIMER  can  be  trapped  like  the  menu  and  mouse  but- 
tons. That  code  then  transformed  into  one  statement  at  the  start 
of  the  program: 

ON  TIMER(60)  GOSUB  PrintCheck  :  TIMER  ON 

Then,  our  main  loop  looks  like  this: 

WHILE  -1  SLEEP  WEND 

Now,  the  program  would  just  sit  and  wait  for  60  seconds  to 
pass  and  then  go  out  to  look  for  a  file  with  a  ".PPT"  extension. 

The  only  remaining  drawback  was  that  of  memory  usage.  The 
program  ate  a  lot  of  memory.  With  AmigaBASIC  loaded,  you 
will  use  approximately  108K  of  RAM  while  the  program  is  in- 
stalled. This  can  be  reduced,  however,  by  compiling  the  program 
with  AC/BASIC  from  AbSoft.  I  won't  apologize  for  the  size  of  this 
one,  since  it's  the  only  spooler  that  I've  seen,  PD  and  commercial 
included,  that  works  totally  unattended  once  installed.  Also, 
since  I  am  running  with  4MB  of  RAM,  I  can  give  up  100K  for 
the  use  of  the  program.  If  you  don't  have  the  memory  to  spare, 
then  this  will  probably  just  be  a  good  exercise  in  BASIC  multi- 
tasking and  BASIC  to  DOS  programming. 

Okay,  so  how  do  you  use  it?  First,  you  will  need  to  create  a  spe- 
cific directory  in  which  you  want  the  spooler  to  look  for  your 
print  files.  I  created  a  directory  called  Spooler  and  then  used  the 
ASSIGN  command  to  assign  SPL:  to  it  from  within  my  Startup- 
Sequence  file.  Since  the  directory  is  on  my  fixed  disk,  the  com- 
mand looks  like  this: 

ASSIGN  SPL:  DH0:Spooler 

The  main  thing  is  that  the  logical  device  SPL:  must  be  as- 
signed before  you  run  the  program,  or  you  will  be  prompted  to 
"insert  volume  SPL:  into  any  drive"  and  the  program  will  hang. 
Once  assigned,  the  program  knows  exactly  where  to  look  for 
your  files.  Next,  place  your  files  into  the  SPL:  directory  and  give 
them  all  an  extension  of  ".PRF'  (upper  or  lower  case).  For  exam- 
ple, SpreadShtl.PRT,  Addend.prt,  etc. 

Once  you  invoke  the  spooler,  it  will  check  the  SPL:  directory 
every  60  seconds  to  see  if  a  ",PRT'  file  exists.  If  it  finds  one  (or 
more),  it  will  use  the  AmigaDOS  command  COPY  to  send  it  out 
to  the  current  PRT  device.  Once  it  completes  the  printing,  it  will 
rename  the  ".PRT"  file  to  ".DONE".  This  prevents  the  file  from 
being  sent  out  to  the  printer  twice. 

Spooler.BAS  is  set  up  for  use  and  has  been  tested  with  the 
AC /BASIC  compiler  from  AbSoft.  Also,  you  must  have  the  file 
"dos.bmap"  in  the  LIBS:  directory  of  your  SYS:  disk  as  we  will 
call  routines  from  that  library. 

Once  again,  the  program  is  a  memory  hog,  but  it  behaves 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE    87 


Amiga  Update  AmigaBASIC  Tutorial 

very  well  in  the  realm  of  multitasking.  To  see  how  well  try  run-    ,  rather  dormant  until  its  60  seconds  come  about,  and  then  it 
ning  it,  and  monitor  the  system  with  the  program  PM  in  the  takes  what  it  needs  of  the  system's  resouras  to  do  its  job.  Once 

TOOLS  directory  of  your  EXTRAS  disk.  You  will  see  that  it  sits      complete,  it  goes  back  to  sleep.  g 

REM  $IGNORE  ON 

CLEAR  ,5000 

REM  $IGNORE  OFF 

WINDOW  CLOSE  1 

LIBRARY  "dos. library" 

DECLARE  FUNCTION  Executes  LIBRARY 

DECLARE  FUNCTION  Locks  LIBRARY 

ON  TIMER(60)  GOSUB  PrintCheck  :  TIMER  ON 

ON  MOUSE  GOSUB  MouseCheck  :  MOUSE  ON 

Main: 

WINDOW  1,"  BASIC  Spl  " ,  (400  ,10) -  (  543 , 18 )  , 14  ,-1 

wPS  =  WINDOW (7) 

COLOR  3  :  PRINT  "Close  Gadget  exits"; 

fLock&  =  Locks (SADD("Spl:FF"+CHR$ (0) ) ,-1) 

IF  fLockS  =  0  THEN 

UnLockS  fLockS 

OPEN  "Spl:FF"  FOR  OUTPUT  AS  2  LEN  =  16 

PRINT  #2,CHR$(12) 

CLOSE  2 

KILL  "Spl :FF. info" 
END  IF 
UnLockS,  fLockS 

Loop: 

WHILE  -1 

SLEEP 
WEND 

PrintCheck : 

TIMER  OFF  '  Turn  it  off  til  we're  through 

x=Execute& (SADD("LIST  >  RAM: {SPL}  Spl : "+CHR$ (0) ) ,0 , 0) 
OPEN  "RAM: {SPL}"  FOR  INPUT  AS  1  LEN  =  1024 
WHILE  NOT  EOF{l) 
LINE  INPUT  #1,  A$ 
A$  =  UCASES(A$) 
J=INSTR(A$,".PRT") 
IF  J  <>  0  THEN 

B$  =  "Spl :"+LEFT$ (AS,J+4) 

C$  =  "COPY  "+BS+"  PRT:"+CHR$ (0)  '  AmigaDOS  needs  the  NULL! 
D$  =  "RENAME  "+B$+"  AS  SPL : "+LEFTS ( AS , J) +"DONE"+CHR$ ( 0 ) 
x= Executes (SADD(CS) ,0,0) 

x  =  ExecuteS  (SADDC'COPY  SplrFF  PRT  :  "+CHRS  (  0)  )  ,  0  ,  0  ) 
x=ExecuteS (SADD(D$) ,0,0) 
END  IF 
WEND 
CLOSE  1 

x=Execute& (SADD ( "DELETE  >  NIL:  RAM : { SPL} #? "+CHR5 ( 0 ) ) , 0 , 0 ) 
TIMER  ON  '  Turn  it  back  on  and  wait  again 

RETURN 

MouseCheck : 

IF  WINDOW(7)  <>  wPS  THEN  Finished 

1  if  we  didn't  CLOSE  the  window  return  and  wait 
RETURN 

Finished: 

REM  $IGNORE  ON 

WINDOW  CLOSE  1  :  WINDOW  CLOSE  2 

LIBRARY  CLOSE  :  CLOSE  :  SYSTEM 

REM  $  IGNORE  OFF  END 


88    AUGUST  1988 


Programming/Tempered  Fun 

Continued  from  fxige  73 


1295 
1296 
1299 

1300 


1301 


1302 


1303 


1304 


1  305 


1306 


1307 


1309 


1350 
1355 

1360 

1370 

1380 
1390 
1395 
1400 
1405 
1410 
1430 
1440 

1445 

1450 

1460 
1470 
1480 
1490 
1500 
1510 

1530 
1540 
1999 
2000 

2010 


DE=.37*D:GOSUB  7000'DLFN 

RETURN 'BAQK 

REM  OWN  EQUAL  TEMPERAMENT ' BTKT 

PRINT" [CLEAR, DOWN, SHFT  T] 

HIS  FUNCTION  LETS  YOU  DEFINE  AN 

EQUAL  TEMPERAMENT  SCALE. " ' BAAN 

PRINT" [DOWN, SHFT  T] 

HE  OCTAVE  WILL  BE  DIVIDED  INTO 

THE  NUMBER  OF  SEGMENTS  YOU  "; 

'BBSO 

PRINT"SPECIFY.  [SHFT  I] 

NPUT  SEGMENTS  FROM  1  TO  1200  (12 

ISA  'NORMAL'  "; '  BBXN 

PRINT"CHROMATIC  SCALE, 

1200  IS  ATUNER'S  'CENTS' 
SCALE) .":PRINT'CBHM 
PRINT"[SHFT  PJRESS  <[SHFT  R, 
SHFT  E,SHFT  T,SHFT  U,SHFT  R, 
SHFT  N]>  AFTER  ENTERING  THE 
DESIRED  " ; "BBFP 
PRINT"NUMBER  OF  SEGMENTS  BELOW." 

:PRINT'CBBJ 

INPUT" [SHFT  Nl UMBER  OF  SEGMENTS 

"'EI1  BDCiJ 

IF  EK1  OR  EI>1200  THEN  PRINT" 

[H0ME,D0WN13] "; :GOTO  1306'HPQL 
PRINT" [DOWN2, SHFT  P] RESS  < 

[SHFT  S,SHFT  P,SHFT  A, SHFT  C, 
SHFT  E]   [SHFT  B,SHFT  A, SHFT  R] 

>  TO  END  THIS  SECTION.  " 

:PRINT'CBYV 

GOSUB  2030'BEDC 

PP=261.626:REM  ACTUAL  HZ 

FREQUENCY  VALUE  FOR  C'CLCR 

CR=2~(1/EI) :REM  MULTIPLYING 

FACTOR  FOR  SEGMENTS ' EMXP 

CN=.fcl6097:REM  COMMODORE 

FREQUENCY  CONVERS I  ON ' CMGO 

BF=INT(PP/CN) 'DIEI 

HI%=BF/256:LI%=BF-256*HI%'FUSN 

PRINT"  0  "; 'BBSL 

POKE  SI  +  7,LI%:POKE  SI+8 , HI  % ' EPRD 

DE=l:GOSUB  7000'CIYE 

POKE  SI+11,17'CHKA 

I=0'BCRB 

AF=LOG(PP)+LOG(CR)*(I+l) 

:BF=EXP (AF) :CF=INT (BF/CN) ' LFGP 

IF  CF>61176  THEN  GOSUB  8000 

:GOTO  80'FOPL 

HJ%=CF/2  56:LJ1=CF-256*HJ%'FUXK 

PRINT  1+1;"  "; 'CEHF 

POKE  SI,LJ%:POKE  S 1+ 1 , H J% ' DOSJ 

POKE  SI+4,17'CGOH 

DE=l:GOSUB  7000'CIYI 

GET  KS'BCQY 

IF  K$="  "THEN  GOSUB  8000 

:GOTO  80'FJRD 

1=1+1 'CDFD 

GOTO  1440'BEGD 

REM  INITIALIZE  SID  CHIP'BRHA 

FOR  SI=54272  TO  54296:POKE  SI,0 

:NEXT'FSGB 

SI=54272:POKE  SI+24,15 


2012 

2013 

2014 

2015 

2016 
3399 

3900 

3901 

3902 
4999 

5000 


5050 
5060 
5070 
5080 
5090 
5100 

5110 

5120 
5130 
5140 
5150 
5160 
5170 
5180 
5190 
5200 
5210 
5220 
5230 
5240 
5250 
5260 
5270 
5280 
5290 
5300 

5310 
5320 
5329 
5330 

5340 

5350 

5360 

5370 


LOUDNESS 'EYAD 

SI+5,0:POKE  SI+6,128 

ADSR-1'FUKE 

SI+12,0:POKE 

ADSR-2'FWWG 

SI+19,0:POKE 

ADSR-3'FWDH 

SI+4,17:POKE 


:REM 

POKE 

:REM 

POKE 

:REM 

POKE 

:REM 

POKE 

:POKE  SI+18, 17'GWWI 

RETURN' BAQB 

REM  FLASHING  GET  ROUTINE 


SI+13,128 
SI+20,128 

SI+11,17 


BSYB 


POKE  198,0:POKE  204,0:POKE  207,0 

:WAIT  198,l:POKE  204,1 

:GET  KS'GHVN 

IF  K$<>"Y"AND  K$<>"N"THEN 

3900'HIBL 

RETURN 'BAQG 

REM  SET  UP  TEMPERAMENT 

ARRAYS 'BWBF 

SF=2145:REM  STARTING  COMMODORE 

FREQUENCY  FOR  C  BELOW  MIDDLE 

C'CYFM 

K=1'BCUD 

J=1'BCTE 

GOSUB  5599'BEEF 

FOR  1=1  TO  23'DEGH 

READ  IC'BCTH 

H1%=SF*(1+IC)/256:L1%={SF*(1+IC)> 

-256*H1%' JHFL 

ON  J  GOSUB  5170,5190,5210, 

5230'CUAE 

NEXT'BAEA 

IF  J=4  THEN  5250'DGUE 

J=J+1'CDHE 

IF  K=l  THEN  5080' DGTG 

IF  K=2  THEN  5280'DGWH 

EH  (I) =H1%:EL(I) =L1%'CRWK 

RETURN'BAQG 

PH(I) =H1%:PL(I)=L1%'CRTM 

RETURN 'BAQY 

JH(I)=H1%: JL(I)=L1%'CRHF 

RETURN'BAQB 

MH(I) =H1%:ML(I) =L1%'CRNH 

RETURN'BAQD 

IF  K=2  THEN  5320'DGRH 

GOSUB  5599'BEEG 

J=1:K=2'CFYI 

FOR  1=24  TO  46'DFOJ 

READ  IC'BCTJ 

H1%=SF*2* {l+IC)/256 

:L1%=(SF*2*(1+IC))-256*H1%'LJR0 

GOTO  5110'BEEC 

RETURN'BAQC 

REM  SCALE  VALUES' BLXO 

RL=5340:GOSUB  11000 

:GOTO  5570'DREI 

DATA  1,4,7,10,13,16,19,24,27,30, 

33,36,39,42,45'BQNM 

RL=5360:GOSUB  11000 

:GOTO  5570'DRGK 

DATA  1,4,6,10,13,15,19,24,27,29, 

33,36,38,42,45'BQSO 

RL=5380:GOSUB  11000 

:GOT0  5570'DRIM 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE    89 


Programming/Tempered  Fun" 


53S0 
5390 
5400 
5410 
5420 
5430 
5440 
5450 
5460 
5470 
5480 
5493 
5500 
5510 
5520 

5529 

5530 

5540 

5550 

5560 

5569 
5570 

5580 


5598 
5599 
5600 


561W 
5620 
5630 

5640 

5650 


DATA  1,4,6,10,13,16,18,24,27,29, 
33,36, 39,41, 45'BQSQ 

RL=5400:GOSUB  11000 

:GOTO  5570'DRBO 

DATA  1,3,6,10,13,15,18,24,26,29, 

33,36,33, 41, 45'BQOJ 

RL=5420:GOSUB  11000 

:GOTO  5  570'DRDH 

DATA  1,4,7,12,13,16,19,24,27,30, 

35, 36,39,42,45'BQRL 

RL=5440:GOSUB  1100U 

:GOTO  5570 '  DRF J 

DATA  1,4,7,10,13,16,18,24,27,30, 

33,36,39,41,45'BQLN 

RL=5460:GOSUB  11000 

:GOTO  5570'DRHL 

DATA  1,4,6,10,13,15,18,24,27,29, 

33,36,38,41,45'BQQP 

RL=5480:GOSUB  11000 

:GOTO  5570'DRJN 

DATA  1,3,6,10,12,15,18,24,26,29, 

33,35,38,41,45'BQMR 

RL=5500:GOSUB  11000 

:GOTO  5580'DRDP 

DATA  24,26,27,29,30,33,35,36,38, 

39,41,42,45'BNRJ 

RL=5520:GOSUB  11000 

:GOTO  5580'DRFI 

DATA  24,25,27,28,30,33,34,36,37, 

39,40,42,45'BNML 

REM  ARRAYS  FOR  SCALE  VALUES 'BUCT 

HM(I) =EH (MI) :LM(I)=EL(MI) 

: RETURN 'DYEM 

HM(I) =PH (MI) :LM(I)=PL(MI) 

:RETURN'DYBN 

HM(I)=JH  (MI)  :LM(I)=JL(MI) 

:RETURN'DYQO 

HM(I)=MH(MI) :LM(I)=ML(MI) 

: RETURN' DYUP 

REM  READ  SCALE  VALUES 'BPBV 

NO=8:FOR  1=1  TO  15:READ  MI 

:ON  TU  GOSUB  5530,5540,5550,5  560 

:NEXT:RETURN" JKSW 

NO=13:FOR  1=8  TO  20:READ  MI 

:ON  TU  GOSUB  5530,5540,5550,5  560 

: NEXT: RETURN' JLOX 

REM  TEMPERAMENT  RATIOS' BRMY 

RL=5600:GOSUB  11000 : RETURN ' DNFY 

DATA  0, .05946, .05946, .12246, 

.189 2,  . 1892,. 2599,. 3348,. 2599, 

.3348, .4142'BOPQ 

DATA  .4142, .4983, .5874, .5874, 

.6818, .7818, .7818, .8877, 1,-8777, 

1,1'BJTQ 

DATA  0, .0679, .0535, .125, .2014, 

.1851,. 26 56,. 3 51 5,. 2485,. 3333, 

.423  8'BKZR 

DATA  .4046, .5, .6017, .5802,-6875, 

.8021,. 7777,. 8984, 1.0136,. 8728,1, 

l'BLCS 

DATA  0,. 0417,. 0667,. 125,. 1718,. 2, 

.25,. 3020,. 28,. 3333,. 4062" BDIR 

DATA  .4400, .5, .5625, .6, .6667, 

.7578,. 8,. 875,. 9531, .92,1,1'BBCS 


5660 


5670 


5999 

6030 
6010 

6020 
6999 
7000 
7010 
7020 
7999 
8000 

8010 
10999 

11000 


11010 


11011 


DATA  0, .0449, .07, .118, .1682, 
.1963,. 25,. 3062,. 28,. 3375, 
.3975'BERT 

DATA  .4311,. 49535,. 5625,. 6,. 6718, 

.74 7, .7889,. 8691,. 9531,. 914,1, 

l'BJQW 

REM  READ  ASCII  FOR  REAL  TIME'BUCF 

RL=6020:GOSUB  11000'CMIB 

FOR  1=0  TO  7:READ  AS:AS(I)=AS 

:NEXT:RETURN'HQOH 

DATA  4 9, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56' BXBE 

REM  TIMING  LOOP'BKTD 

TIS="000000" 'BDCB 

IF  TI/b0<DE  THEN  7010'EKEE 

RETURN' BAQB 

REM  CLEAR  SID  CHIP'BMYE 

FOR  SI=54272  TO  54296:POKE  SI,0 

:NEXT'FSGH 

RETURN 'BAQB 
REM  RESTORE  TO  SPECIFIC  LINE 
ROUTINE'BDIU 
POKE  785,232:POKE  786,7 
:POKE  209,232:POKE  210,7 
:POKE  211,0:POKE  213,39'GPPD 
PRINT"  S [RVS]&S[RVOFF,CMDR  *, 
RVS] HD [RVOFF, SHFT  A,RVS] S [RVOFF, 
SHFT  SPACE, RVS] D [RVOFF, SHFT  B, 
SHFT  SPACE] "'BAOB 
POKE  RL,PEEK(RL) :RL=USR(RL) 


: RETURN 'FPKB 


END 


Programming/Stratahex" 

Continued  from  page  69 


2676 
2680 
2685 
2700 
2702 
2705 
2710 


2715 
2720 

2725 

2726 
2730 
2735 

2750 
2752 
2755 
2760 


2765 
2770 

2772 
2775 

2776 


^KFN 


IQI 


THEN 


IF  PO.l  THEN  NEXT  LO'EFUQ 

IF  PC=0  OR  PC=1  THEN  2652'F 

GOTO  2900'BEIO 

X=X(PT) :Y=Y (PT) 'CNIF 

IF  X>33  OR  Y=0  THEN  2900'FJ 

X=X+1: Y=Y-1'EHHK 

IF  (PEEK(C+X+Y*40) AND  15)=7 

PRINT  " [UP, RVS] <<<<BLOCKED> 

:GOTO  2900'KRLQ 

X=X+1'CDKJ 

IF  PEEK(V+X+Y*40)=81  THEN 

PC=(PEEK(C+X+Y*4tf)  AND  15)'NWYU. 

IF  PC>1  THEN  FOR  LO=l  TO  PL 

:IF  PC=C(LO)  THEN  P=LO'KTXT 

IF  PC>1  THEN  NEXT  LO'EFUM 

IF  PC  =  0  OR  PC=1  THEN  2702 'F 

GOTO    29ts0'BEIK 

X=X(PT)  : Y=Y  (PT)  'CNIK 

IF  X<2  OR  Y=20  THEN  2900'FJ 

X=X-1'CDLN 

IF  (PEEK (C+X+Y*40) AND  15)=7 

PRINT  " [UP, RVS] <<<<BLOCKED> 

:G0TO  2900'KRLV 

X=X-1: Y=Y+1'EHHQ 

IF  PEEK(V+X+Y*40)=81  THEN 

PC=(PEEK(C+X+Y*40)  AND  15 

IF  PC=0  THEN  2752'DHSN 

IF  PC>1  THEN  FOR  L0=1  TO  PL 

:IF  PC=C(LO)  THEN  P=L0'KTXY 

IF  PC>1  THEN  NEXT  LO'EFUR 


'KBJ 


ILN 


THEN 


NWYV 


90    AUGUST  1988 


Programming/ Stratahex' 


2780  IF  PC=0  OR  PC=1  THEN  2752'FKGO 

2785  GOTO  2900'BEIP 

2800  X=X (PT) : Y=Y (PT) 'CNIG 

2802  IF  Y>19  THEN  2900'DHMH 

2805  Y=Y+1'CDMJ 

2810  IF  (PEEK(C+X+Y*40)ANO  15)=7  THEN 

PRINT  "  [UP,RVS]  <<<<BLOCKED>>>>" 

:GOTO  2900'KRLR 
2815  Y=Y+1'CDMK 
2820  IF  PEEK(V+X+Y*40) =81  THEN 

PC=(PEEK(C+X+Y*40)  AND  15)'NWYR 

2825  IF  PC>1  THEN  FOR  LO=l  TO  PL 
: IF  PC=C(LO)  THEN  P=LO'KTXU 

2826  IF  PC>1  THEN  NEXT  LO'EFUN 
2830  IF  PC=0  OR  PC=1  THEN  2802'FKCK 
2835  GOTO  2903'BEIL 

2850  X=X (PT) :Y=Y (PT) 'CNIL 

2852  IF  Y>19  OR  X  =  39  'iHEN  2930'FKAO 

2855  X=X+l'CDKO 

2860  IF  (PEEK{C+X+Y*40)AND  L5) -1    THEN 

PRINT  "  [UP,RVS] <<<<BLOCKED>>>>" 

:GOTO  290  0'KRLW 
2865  X=X+1:Y=Y+1'EHGR 
2870  IF  PEEK(V+X+Y*40) =81  THEN 

PC= (PEEK(C+X+Y*40)  AND  15)'HWYW 

2875  IF  PC>1  THEN  FOR  LO=l  TO  PL 
:IF  PC=C(LO)  THEN  P=LO'KTXA 

2876  IF  PC>1  THEN  NEXT  LO'EFUS 
2880  IF  PC=0  OE  PC=1  THEN  2852'FKHP 
2885  GOTO  2900'BEIQ 

2900  IF  P=0  THEN  2960'DGCG 


2902  POKE  C  +  X  (P)+Y (P) *40,4'ENTK 
2905  ON  P  GOTO  2  920,29  30,2940, 
2  9  50  'CUON 

2920  X  (P) =19; Y(P) =0:POKL 

V  +  X(P) +Y(P) *40,81:POKE 
C  +  X (P) +Y  (P) *40,C(P)  'KTJV 

2925  GOTO  2960'BEOL 

2930  X (P) =19: Y (P) =20:POKE 

V+X(P)+Y  (P) *40,81:POKE 
C+X(P)+Y(P)*40,C(P) 'KUJW 

2935  GOTO  2960'BEOM 

2940  X  (P)=1j Y (P) =11: POKE 

V+X (P)+Y(P) *40,81:POKE 
C+X(P)+Y(P)*40,C(P) 'KTCX 

2945  GOTO  2960'BEON 

2950  X (P) =39: Y (P) =10:POKE 

V+X(P) +Y (P) *40,81:POKE 
C+X (P) +Y (P) *40,C(P) 'KUKY 

2960  IF  PT=PL  THEN  2000'DIEM 

2970  NEXT  PT'BCML 

4000  PRINT  " [CLEAR, CYAN) 

CONGRATULATIONS,  PLAYER" ;W ' BCLF 

4010  PRINT  "[YELLOW] YOU  ARE  THE 
WINNER" 'BAWD 

4020  PRINT" [DOWN2,L,  GREEN] 

PLAY  ANOTHER  GAME  (Y/N)" ' BAFF 

4C30  GET  AS: IF  AS=""  THEN  4030'EJED 

4040  IF  AS^"N"  THEN  PRINT  "[CLEAR]" 
: FND'FDBE 

4050  IF  AS="Y"  THEN  RUN'ECTE 

4  06  0  GOTO  4  0  30 'BEED  END 


Best  of  Amiga  Public  Domain 

Continued  from  page  57 

Communicator  version  1.34  was  the  gen- 
eral-purpose PD  terminal  program  of 
choice  for  virtually  all  Amiga  users.  It 
didn't  have  a  ton  of  features  (at  least  com- 
pared to  the  terminal  programs  today,  al- 
though when  it  first  appeared  in  mid  1986 
it  blew  away  the  crop  of  PD  general-pur- 
pose terminal  program  available),  but 
those  it  had  worked  and  it  was  a  rock- 
steady program. 

The  other  reason  why  Communicator  is 
awarded  a  medal  is  that  it  is  the  father  of 
both  AMIC  PD  TERM,  and  Access!  (which 
is  poised  to  knock  AMIC  PD  TERM  off  as 
the  best  general-purpose  terminal  in 
1988).  Dan  James  performed  a  great  ser- 
vice to  telecommunicating  Amiga  users 
by  unselfishly  releasing  his  source  code 
for  Communicator  1.34  in  order  to  help 
other  programmers  create  even  better 
Amiga  PD  terminal  programs.  Although  I 
now  personally  only  recommend  Commu- 
nicator to  beginning  Amiga  users  who 
want  to  start  using  their  modem  quickly 
without  having  to  become  familiar  with  a 
more  powerful  but  complicated  terminal 
program,  Communicator  and  its  author 
Dan  James  have  easily  earned  this  award. 


In  early  1987, 
Communicator  version  1.34 
was  the  general-purpose  PD 
terminal  program  of  choice 
for  virtually  all  Amiga  users. 

Bronze  Medal:  Handshake  by  Eric 
Haberfellner  (AmigaZone  file  #10236; 
Shareware:  $25) 

Handshake  replaced  Dave  Weckers 
venerable  terminal  program  inamed  ap- 
propriately VT100)  as  the  top  VT-1 00  ori- 
ented terminal  program  in  1987.  Hand- 
shake not  only  blew  away  VT1 00  in  terms 
of  emulating  a  VT100  terminal,  but  Eric 
was  loudly  claiming  that  Handshake  even 
surpassed  all  commercial  terminal  pro- 
grams in  terms  of  VT-100  emulation. 

Eric  backs  up  this  claim  with  a  message 
posted  on  Usenet  where  Marco  Papa's 
VTIest  program  was  used  to  test  five  ter- 
minal programs  for  VT100  compatibility. 
In  the  test  Handshake  blew  VT100  away 
and  also  proved  superior  to  the  commer- 
cial programs  Diga!  and  A-Talk.  I  In  all 
fairness  this  test  was  conducted  back  in 


July  of  1987.  How  about  doing  a  new  com- 
parison, Eric?) 

Handshake  also  has  such  features  as 
autodialing,  a  phone  directory  and  Xmo- 
dem-CRC  plus  Ymodem-'Ymodem-batch 
protocol  support  that  make  it  quite  usable 
for  general -purpose  telecommunicating 
also.  Although  it  is  designed  for  a  differ- 
ent type  of  user,  Handshake  is  still  the 
only  PD  telecomm  program  that  even 
comes  close  to  giving  AMIC  PD  TERM  a 
ran  for  its  money  in  terms  of  features. 

Honorable  Mention:  ACO  by  Steve 
Pietrowicz  (AmigaZone  file  #10883) 
ACO  has  brought  Amiga-quality 
graphics  to  teleconferencing,  and  it  also 
allows  people  to  better  express  themselves 
online  by  designing  their  own  custom 
faces  for  use  in  ACO  on  PeopleLink. 

System  Utilities 

Gold  Medal:  VirusCheck  bv  Bill  Koester 

(AmigaZone  file  #9974) 

I  have  little  doubt  in  my  mind  that  one 
of  the  major  stories  in  the  Amiga  commu- 
nity in  late  1987  was  the  first  appearance 
of  viruses  on  the  Amiga.  Most  Amiga  us- 
ers were  at  least  worried,  and  since  most 
had  never  used  a  disk  editor  before,  a  pro- 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE     91 


Best  nf  Amiga  Public  Domain 

gram  was  sorely  needed  that  was  express- 
ly designed  for  checking  a  floppy  disk  for 
the  presence  of  a  virus.  It  isn't  the  best 
such  program  today,  but  it  was  the  first, 
and  that  is  what  counted  back  then. 

Silver  Medal:  GOMF  by  Christian 

Johnsen  (Fish  95;  Shareware:  $5) 

What  ideas  do  you  associate  with  the 
Amiga?  Great  graphics?  Stereo  sound? 
Well,  how  about  the  dreaded  Guru?  Al- 
though it  wasn't  as  bad  this  past  year  as 
during  the  early  days,  Gurus  were  still  a 
common  sight.  GOMF  (Get  Outta  My 
Face)  was  the  first  serious  attempt  to 
eliminate  the  destructive  nature  of  Gurus 
in  terms  of  bringing  down  the  entire  sys- 
tem with  one  faulty  program.  GOMF  only 
stopped  some  crashes,  but  it  did  work. 
GOMF  didn't  totally  cure  the  Guru  blues 
of  Amiga  users,  but  at  least  GOMF 
showed  convincingly  that  the  Guru  is  not 
invincible. 


Bronze  Medal:  Journal  by  Davide 
Cervone  (Fish  95) 

What  do  you  do  to  show  off  your  Amiga 
to  your  friends?  Don't  you  wish  your 
Amiga  could  show  itself  off?  Well  don't 
laugh,  because  that  is  indeed  possible. 
Journal  allows  you  to  essentially  simulate 
hooking  up  a  VCR  to  your  Amiga  and  re- 
cording an  Amiga  session.  By  capturing 
the  input  stream  and  recording  it  for  later 
playback,  Journal  will  save  each  and  ev- 
ery action  you  performed,  whether  it  be  a 
key  press,  a  mouse  pointer  movement  or  a 
mouse  button  click.  Many  companies  are 
starting  to  use  this  technique  to  create  de- 
mos that  actually  simulate  the  program 
being  used. 

Although  other  PD  programs,  and  now 
at  least  one  commercial  program,  have 
been  introduced  that  perform  the  same 
basic  function,  Journal  is  the  program 
that  first  brought  this  concept  to  Amiga 
users.  One  other  nice  aspect  about  Jour- 
nal is  it  shows  another  software  concept 
that  can  only  be  realized  on  a  true  multi- 
tasking system. 

Honorable  Mention:  MoreRows  by  Neil 
Katin  and  Jim  Mackraz  (Fish  54) 

MoreRows  gave  a  simple  and  very  use- 
ful example  of  how  the  average  user  could 
utilize  the  overscan  area  for  normal  use, 
including  CLI  and  Workbench.  A  side  ef- 
fect of  Commodore  introducing  the  A1084 
monitor  is  that  now  even  more  people  can 
easily  take  advantage  of  the  entire  overs- 
can display  area  since  unlike  the  A1080, 
the  A1084  allows  the  user  to  shrink  the 


video  display  in  both  the  horizontal  and 
vertical  directions  (the  A1080  allowed 
control  only  in  the  vertical  direction).  This 
means  that  you  can  now  easily  use  Mor- 
eRows to  view  up  to  around  85  characters 
horizontally  in  the  average  word  processor 
instead  of  the  normal  limit  of  76  or  77 
(taking  into  account  the  area  taken  up  by 
bar/border  gadgets  on  each  side).  Combine 
that  with  the  four  or  five  extra  rows  of  text 

With  PKAX  Amiga  users  can 
download  archived  MS-DOS 
text  files  and  be  completely 
confident  that  they  will  be 
able  to  unravel  the  archive. 


that  can  fit  in  a  MoreRows  display,  and  I 
think  you  can  start  to  see  how  useful  Mor- 
eRows can  become. 

Honorable  Mention:  Mach  by  Brian 
Moats  (Fish  130) 

What  makes  Mach  special  is  that  it  es- 
sentially combines  several  popular  utility 
programs  (screen-blanker,  title-bar  clock 
and  New  CLI  hotkey)  into  one  tiny  pack- 
age. Among  other  things  Mach  can  help 
eliminate  the  clutter  of  small  window  and 
bar  displays  that  can  occur  when  you  are 
running  several  utility  programs  at  one 
time. 

File  Utilities 

Gold  Medal:  PKAX  by  PKWARE  Inc. 

(AmigaZone  file  #9641;  Shareware:  $25) 
Telecommunicating  Amiga  users  know 
that  ARC  is  still  the  predominant  stan- 
dard for  compressing  files  for  modem 
transfer.  Although  others  have  tried  to  re- 
place ARC  with  another  standard  (in  this 
case  most  notably  ZOO),  like  a  tired  ele- 
phant, the  entrenched  ARC  is  here  to  stay. 
For  those  who  aren't  happy  with  ARC,  it 
would  make  sense  to  adopt  something 
that  is  superior  to  ARC,  yet  downward 
•compatible  with  ARC. 

PKAX  is  the  answer.  PKAX  is  a  pro- 
gram that  will  only  unravel  files,  it  will 
not  create  archives.  However,  PKAX  will 
unravel  ARC  archives  in  half  the  time 
that  ARC  can.  Just  as  important  is  the 
fact  that  in  addition  to  the  standard  com- 
pression modes  the  Amiga  version  of  ARC 
supports  (crunching,  squeezing,  packing 
and  storing),  PKAX  also  can  handle  files 
compressed  with  the  squashing  compres- 
sion mode.  Why  would  Amiga  users  care 
about  a  compression  mode  that  isn't  even 


used  by  their  own  ARC  program?  Amiga 
users  should  care  since  in  the  MS-DOS 
telecommunications  service  world,  the 
standard  is  not  ARC,  but  PKARC. 
PKARC  is  faster,  more  powerful  and  more 
efficient  than  ARC. 

What  makes  PKARC  incompatible 
with  ARC  (from  a  de-arcing  point  of  view) 
is  PKARC 's  squashing  compression  mode. 
Therefore,  Amiga  users  are  not  able  to  un- 
ravel most  archives  downloaded  off  an 
MS-DOS-oriented  BBS  or  online  service 
using  ARC.  But  if  PKAX  is  used,  there  is 
no  problem.  So  with  PKAX  Amiga  users 
can  download  archived  MS-DOS  text  files 
or  other  files  useful  to  an  Amiga  user  and 
be  completely  confident  that  they  will  be 
able  to  unravel  the  archive. 

There  are  two  other  reasons  why  PKAX 
is  very  important  to  the  Amiga  communi- 
ty. First,  the  introduction  of  PKAX  to  the 
Amiga  means  that  eventually  something 
even  better  will  hit  the  Amiga  PD  soft- 
ware scene:  PKARC.  Both  PKAX  and 
PKARC  are  written  by  the  same  com- 
pany, PKWARE  Inc.,  so  it  is  only  natural 
to  assume  that  PKARC  can't  be  too  far 
away  from  entering  the  Amiga  world. 
PKARC  will  not  only  allow  Amiga  users 
to  create  archives  substantially  faster  that 
ARC  can,  it  will  also  create  much  smaller 
archives  (thanks  to  the  squashing  com- 
pression mode,  which  is  much  more  ad- 
vanced than  the  other  modes).  I'm  sure 
BBS  sysops  and  BBS  users  will  love  to  see 
smaller  arc  files! 

Second,  on  some  MS-DOS  BBSs  that 
also  support  an  Amiga  section  (and  there 
are  many  of  these),  some  sysops  have  de- 
cided to  adhere  to  only  one  archiving  stan- 
dard for  the  entire  BBS,  PKARC.  This 
means  that  all  the  Amiga  files,  in  addi- 
tion to  all  the  MS-DOS  files  will  be  com- 
pressed with  PKARC  (this  is  possible 
since  MS-DOS  sysops  have  access  to  a  spe- 
cial program  called  LARC  which  will  easi- 
ly convert  ARC  archives  to  PKARC  ar- 
chives). Therefore  on  these  BBSs,  an 
Amiga  user  who  wants  to  download  an 
Amiga  file  will  have  to  use  PKAX  to  as- 
sure that  he  will  be  able  to  unravel  the 
PKARC  archive  successfully. 

Silver  Medal:  Filelnjector  by  Justin 
McCormick  (AmigaZone  file  #9973) 

With  computer  systems  if  you  don't  like 
a  certain  peripheral  supplied  by  the  com- 
puter manufacturer  you  can  usually  re- 
place it  with  a  compatible  piece  of  hard- 
ware from  a  third  party  manufacturer. 
Unfortunately  the  same  usually  doesn't 
hold  true  if  don't  you  like  a  certain  part  of 
a  software  program.  Or  does  it? 


92    AUGUST  1988 


Best  of  Amiga  Public  Domain 

Filelnjector  allows  you  to  junk  the  file 
requestor  in  any  program  and  use  a  sepa- 
rate one  instead.  While  renowned  Amiga 
programmers  like  Charlie  Heath  and  R.J. 
Mica!  try  to  help  programmers  by  provid- 
ing nice  file  requesters  to  add  to  their  own 
programs,  Justin  McCormick  has  pro- 
vided help  for  Amiga  users  who  use  pro- 
grams written  by  programmers  who  just 
don't  take  advantage  of  such  help. 

Conman  is  like  a  cup  of 
coffee  in  the  morning.  When 
you  use  it,  you  don't  think 
that  much  about  it.  But 
when  you  don't  have  it,  you 
just  can't  function  as  well. 


Bronze  Medal:  Pak  by  Mark  Riley 
(AmigaZone  file  #8896) 

Pak  has  brought  something  to  the 
Amiga  telecommunicating  community 
which  unlike  the  64/128  community,  we 
have  lacked  until  now,  That  is  archives 
that  are  "self-dissolving."  Self-dissolving 
archives  (known  simply  as  SDAs  to  you 
64/128  users)  are  compressed  archives 
where  the  user  doesn't  need  a  separate 
program  to  unravel  the  archive.  All  the 
user  has  to  do  is  type  the  name  of  the  ar- 
chive. 

Pak  in  a  sense  is  the  archive  to  use  on 
those  special  few  files  that  a  totally  new 
Amiga  user  must  have  in  order  to  get 
started  in  the  BBS/online  service  world. 
(For  example,  on  my  own  IDCMP  BBS.  I 
have  used  Pak  to  compress  PKAX,  so  that 
new  Amiga  users  can  easily  get  PKAX  in 
order  to  start  downloading  and  unraveling 
archives  created  with  ARC.)  Pak  also  al- 
lows filenames  to  be  longer  than  12  char- 
acters, which  is  convenient  since  unlike 
MS-DOS,  AmigaDOS  allows  for  long  file- 
names. (This  is  a  point  which  fans  of  the 
archiver  ZOO  have  eagerly  used  to  try  to 
convince  everyone  else  that  ZOO  is  better 
than  ARC,  although  there  are  many  pro- 
grams that  allow  ARC  users  to  archive 
files  with  long  names  without  too  much 
trouble.) 

CLI  Improvements 'Replacements 
Gold  Medal:  Conman  by  Bill  Hawes 
(Fish  133;  Shareware:  $10) 

Conman  is  like  a  cup  of  coffee  in  the 
morning.  When  you  use  it,  you  don't  think 
that  much  about  it.  But  when  you  don't 


have  it,  you  just  can't  function  as  well. 
That's  just  how  indispensable  it  has  be- 
come to  me  as  well  as  to  other  Amiga  us- 
ers who  are  just  as  addicted. 

How  many  times  have  you  misspelled  a 
CLI  command?  How  many  times  do  you 
have  to  type  something  from  CLI  that  you 
just  typed  in  a  few  minutes  ago?  Besides 
the  obvious  parts  of  Conman  (the  line- 
editing  and  command  histories  portion  of 
the  program),  another  feature  that  I 
couldn't  live  without  is  the  shrink/expand 
CLI  window  functions  residing  on  the 
F1/F2  keys.  It  is  convenient  to  be  able  to 
get  the  CLI  window  out  of  the  way  and 
bring  it  back  again  with  one  key  press. 

I  shouldn't  forget  the  fact  that  Conman 
is  totally  transparent  to  the  average 
Amiga  user.  It  does  not  replace  your  CLI 
with  something  else  (like  a  shell  does),  it 
enhances  what  you  already  have. 

Reviewing  Uedit  is  like  an  art 

critic  reviewing  a  lump  of 
clay.  You  can  mold  it  to  suit 
your  needs,  not  those  of  the 
author  of  the  program. 


Silver  Medal:  LS  by  Justin  McCormick 

(AmigaZone  file  #99021 

Without  a  doubt,  the  most-used  CLI 
command  is  the  DER  command.  LS  is 
what  the  DIR  command  should  have 
been.  It  will  use  up  to  five  columns  to  dis- 
play files,  compared  to  DIR's  two  columns. 
LS  displays  directories  in  red  text  for  em- 
phasis. LS  can  sort  files  by  date  or  by  size. 
It  can  also  do  what  the  AmigaDOS  LIST 
command  can  do.  And,  of  course,  LS  sup- 
ports Unix-style  wildcarding  in  addition 
to  AmigaDOS  pattern  matching.  If  you 
only  replace  one  AmigaDOS  command 
with  an  improved  version,  replace  DIR 
withLS. 

Text  Utilities 

Gold  Medal:  Uedit  by  Rick  Stiles 
(Fish  121;  Shareware:  $25) 

Uedit  was  definitely  the  most  sophisti- 
cated text  editor  to  come  along  last  year. 
Its  Learn  mode  makes  it  easy  for  begin- 
ners, and  total  programmability  allows 
advanced  users  to  shape  Uedit  into  virtu- 
ally anything  they  want.  There  are  al- 
ready application  programs  out  in  the 
public  domain  that  turn  Uedit  into  a  front 
end  for  either  Aztec  C  or  for  a  Modula-2 
compiler,  and  there  are  other  such  appli- 
cation programs  for  Uedit. 


Reviewing  Uedit  is  like  an  art  critic  re- 
viewing a  lump  of  clay.  You  can  mold  it  to 
suit  your  needs,  not  those  of  the  author  of 
the  program.  How  many  programs  do  you 
know  of  that  allow  you  to  totally  reshape 
the  program  yourself  without  writing  a 
single  line  of  code? 

Silver  Medal:  Blitz  by  Hayes  Haugen 

(Fish  60;  Shareware:  $10) 

For  those  who  don't  have  a  fortune  to 
waste  on  printer  paper  (or  the  time  to  wait 
for  the  file  to  be  printed),  reading  text  files 
on  the  Amiga  monitor  is  a  fact  of  life.  But 
this  fact  doesn't  have  to  be  a  painful  one. 
Using  Blitz  is  much  more  convenient  than 
using  the  Type  command  or  even  tiny 
reader  programs  like  More  and  Less.  First 
of  all,  Blitz  looks  like  a  real  program  with 
a  real  user  interface.  More  and  Less  re- 
minds me  of  a  program  whose  growth  was 
purposely  stunted  so  as  not  to  take  up  too 
much  disk  space  on  a  PD  disk  (and  that  is 
understandable). 

Blitz  scrolls  text  at  a  speed  like  a  pro- 
gram running  on  an  Amiga  should.  Blitz 
also  has  a  couple  of  nice  stripping  com- 
mands that  help  to  convert  text  files  that 
didn't  make  a  modem  transmission  in  the 
same  form  that  they  were  created  in.  Per- 
haps what's  most  convenient  about  Blitz  is 
that  it  can  be  told  to  go  into  the  back- 
ground and  go  to  sleep  (with  or  without 
the  text  file  currently  being  displayed)  un- 
til called  for. 

Bronze  Medal:  Sniplt  by  Scott  Evernden 
(AmigaZone  file  #8377) 

It's  too  bad  that  most  text-oriented 
Amiga  programs  don't  make  full  use  of 
the  clipboard.  The  clipboard  can  be  used 
to  perform  cut  and  paste  procedures  not 
only  within  or  between  documents,  but 
also  between  totally  separate  programs. 
Sniplt  tries  to  make  up  for  this,  by  allow- 
ing you  to  move  text  from  one  program  to 
another.  Unfortunately  Sniplt  can  only 
help  if  the  two  programs  you  want  to  im- 
port text  to/from  use  console  windows  and 
not  fancy  Intuition  windows.  Nevertheless 
Sniplt  can  still  be  useful  in  many  situa- 
tions. 

Honorable  Mention:  Keep  by  Tim 

Grantham  (AmigaZone  file  #8936) 

For  BBS/online  service  users  who  cap- 
ture hundreds  of  messages  at  a  time, 
Keep  can  help  to  sort  out  the  important 
messages  from  the  rest  of  the  clutter. 
Keep  requires  only  that  there  be  a  header 
to  each  message  that  doesn't  change.  For 
each  separate  message  you  can  tell  Keep 
whether  you  want  it  stored  and  saved  as 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE    93 


Best  of  Amiga  Public  Domain 

part  of  a  special  group  of  messages  that 
have  special  meaning  to  you. 

This  program  is  currently  used  by  the 
Conference  Chairman  of  PeoploLink's 
AmigaZone.  Harv  Laser,  to  post  Usenet 
captures  that  contain  only  messages  of  in- 
terest to  the  AmigaZone  members.  Keep 
already  has  built-in  support  for  People- 
Link,  GEnie,  Usenet,  CompuServe  and 
bulletin  boards  running  BBS-PC  software 
among  others,  plus  you  can  input  a  cus- 
tom message  header. 

Normal  Demos 

Gold  Medal:  Khanankas  by  Ken  Offer 
(Fish  116) 

Khanankas  has  become  the  standard 
example  of  how  good  ray-tracing  graphics 
can  get  on  the  Amiga.  Using  what  is  wide- 
ly regarded  as  the  Amiga's  best  graphics 
mode,  interlaced  HAM,  Khanankas  is 
very  good  at  mesmerizing  Amiga  users 
just  like  Juggler  was.  Although  the  ani- 
mation part  of  Khanankas  is  a  yawner, 
the  graphics  still  knock  you  dead.  The  fact 
that  Khanankas  will  run  with  only  512K 
made  it  accessible  to  all  users  at  the  time, 
and  back  in  1987  most  people  still  had 
only  512K. 

Silver  Medal:  RGB  by  Joel  Hagen 

(Fish  112) 
RGB  not  only  won  the  BADGE  Killer 

Demo  Contest,  but  it  was  also  the  first 
demo  that  showed  how  The  Director  could 
be  used  as  an  animation  creator  in  addi- 
tion to  just  a  fancy  slide  show  creator.  It 
also  helps  if  a  demo  has  a  decent  humor 
content,  and  RGB  was  amply  supplied  in 
that  department.  Though  I  think  that  the 
judges  at  BADGE  gave  its  humorous  con- 
tent a  bit  too  much  emphasis  in  their 
judging,  RGB  is  a  very  fine  demo. 


Khanankas  has  become  the 
standard  example  of  how 
good  ray-tracing  graphics 
can  get  on  the  Amiga. 


Bronze  Medal:  Probe  by  Joel  Hagen 
(AmigaZone  files:  7291,  7294  and  72951 
Most  demos  last  30  seconds  or  less  be- 
fore repeating.  When  I  first  got  this  demo 
that  ran  for  over  six  minutes,  I  was  quite 
intrigued.  Probe  may  not  be  as  flashy  as 
most  demos,  but  unlike  most  demos, 
Probe  has  a  real  story  inside  it.  You  wer- 
en't dazzled  by  Probe  after  watching  it. 


but  you  still  wanted  to  have  a  copy  any- 
way. Of  course  being  shown  on  TV  as  well 
as  being  featured  in  AmigaWorld  counts 
for  something  too. 

Honorable  Mention:  Berserk  by  Leo 

Schwab  (Fish  132i 

Besides  the  now-famous  story  behind 
Berserk  and  its  famous  predecessor.  Ber- 
serk is  one  of  the  best  VideoSeape  3-D  de- 
mos 1  have  ever  seen,  if  not  the  best  ever.  I 
wonder  what  wonderful  creations  Leo  can 
pull  out  of  his  cape  if  he  suddenly  acquires 
an  interest  in  ray  tracing. 

Not  only  did  DemoReell 
receive  a  gold  medal  this 
year,  it  shouldn't  have  too 
tough  a  time  gaining  entry 
into  the  Amiga  PD  Hall  of 
Fame  next  year. 


Custom  Demos 

Gold  Medal:  DemoReell  by  NewTek.  Inc. 

There  is  no  question  this  was  the  top 
Amiga  demo  of  1987.  It  was  both  dazzling 
and  long-lasting.  Not  only  did  it  have  kill- 
er graphics  and  nice  animation,  it  also 
contained  something  that  most  graphics 
demos  sorely  lack— sound.  DemoReell 
had  fantastic  digitized  music  and  sound 
effects  to  complement  the  visual  part  of 
the  demo. 

As  far  as  demonstrating  things  that 
weren't  old  hat  to  the  Amiga  community, 
DemoReell  featured  the  640  x  400  color 
digitizing  mode  (with  such  stunning  pic- 
tures as  the  "Prego"  and  "Sanka"  ads) 
that  had  been  added  to  their  digitizer 
DigiView. 

DemoReell  also  premiered  some  of  the 
possibilities  of  NewTek 's  yet-to-be-re- 
leaged  special  effects  package  Digi-F/X. 
Plus  it  obviously  impressed  quite  a  few 
non- Amiga  owners  with  the  HAM  graph- 
ics that  most  of  us  have  become  pleasant- 
ly accustomed  to  by  now.  Not  only  did  De- 
moReell receive  a  gold  medal  award  this 
year,  it  shouldn't  have  too  tough  a  time 
gaining  entry  into  the  Amiga  PD  Hall  of 
Fame  next  year. 

Silver  Medal:  El  Gain  bv  Kevin  Sullivan 
(Fish  1251 

Color  graphics  in  a  demo  usually  take 
precedence  over  the  animation  portions. 
However,  El  Gato  is  a  major  exception  to 


the  rule.  El  Gate's  animation  of  a  digitized 
cat  walking  inside  a  window  rotating  in 
3D  was  one  of  the  most  stunning  things  I 
saw  on  my  Amiga  all  year.  It  didn't  seem 
to  matter  that  the  only  colors  used  in  El 
Gato  were  muted  shades  of  brown  and 
gray.  E!  Gato  was  unique  in  that  it  was 
the  first  demo  I  can  remember  that  actu- 
ally required  more  than  512K  in  order  to 
run  fully. 

Bronze  Medal:  Zeus  by  Greg  Tsadilas  and 
Jay  Dawes 

This  demo  would  have  received  much 
more  praise  if  El  Gato  hadn't  preceded  it 
by  five  months.  Still  this  demo  was  only 
one  of  three  demos  that  was  forever  im- 
mortalized in  Commodore's  Amiga  500 
TV  commercial  (the  other  two  were  Jug- 
gler and  Allen  Hastings'  VideoSeape 
demo).  It  is  certainly  more  colorful  than 
El  Gato.  The  golden  reflections  off  the 
spinning  sculpture  were  a  pleasant  sight 
indeed.  However,  it  came  out  after  RGB, 
HalfBrite  Hill  and  other  great  demos,  and 
it  just  didn't  stand  out  as  much  in  Novem- 
ber of  1987  as  it  would  have  back  in  April, 
But  it's  still  much  better  than  anything 
any  other  micro  under  $5000  could  hope 
to  show. 

Honorable  Mention:  Killer  bv  Robert  Wilt 
(Fish  115) 

This  demo  gets  recognized  mainly  since 
many  computer  users,  (especially  Amiga 
users)  like  to  show  that  their  computer  is 
superior  to  others.  It  really  is  childish,  but 
you  still  can't  help  feeling  smug  after  see- 
ing Killer.  Others  just  liked  it  since  it  fea- 
tured Beatles  tunes.  Take  your  pick. 

Honorable  Mention:  HalfBrite  Hill  bv 

Kevin  Sullivan  (Fish  126) 

How  many  of  you  had  ever  seen  any- 
thing in  I  lalfBrite  mode  before  this  demo 
appeared?  On  top  of  being  a  colorful  demo, 
hats  off  to  Blair-Sullivan  for  bringing  this 
neglected  mode  out  of  the  dark.  I  know 
Leo  Schwab's  HalfBrite  demo  EHB  (re- 
viewed in  March  1988  column)  came  be- 
fore this  one,  but  HalfBrite  Hill  is  much 
nicer. 

Honorable  Mention:  Marketroids  bv  Ijeo 
Schwab  (Fish  115) 

Being  the  Amiga  addict  that  I  am,  I 
couldn't  possibly  refrain  from  giving  some 
kind  of  award  to  Leo  for  Marketroids.  If 
for  nothing  else,  Marketroids  wins  on  hu- 
mor and  steadfast  loyalty  to  the  true  spirit 
of  the  Amiga.  Sure,  the  graphics  are  such 
that  Atari  ST  fans  could  port  this  to  their 
machine  easily,  but  doing  that  would  be 


94    AUGUST  1988 


Best  of  Amiga  Public  Domain 

like  McDonald's  selling  flame-broiled 
burgers,  it's  self-defeating  and  probably 
quite  embarrassing. 

Graphic  Display  Hacks  (GDH) 
Gold  Medal:  Robotroff  by  Leo  Schwab 

i  Fish  59) 

For  several  reasons  this  was  the  king  of 
GDHs  in  1987.  First  of  all,  unlike  most 
GDHs,  Robotroff  didn't  take  control  of  the 
machine  in  order  to  perform  its  silliness 
(small  Robortron  characters  march  onto 
screen  and  try  to  take  your  pointer),  it 
largely  left  the  system  alone.  The  user 
could  continue  with  whatever  he  was  do- 
ing before  Robotroff  was  run.  Robotrofr 
also  is  a  harmless  GDI!  in  that  it  docs  not 
harm  the  current  display  in  any  way.  And 
Robotroff  has  a  time  delay  feature  that 
can  be  used  to  surprise  an  unsuspecting 
friend.  It  also  adds  a  small  element  of 
chance,  since  you  never  know  which  Robo- 
tron  character  will  appear  to  attack  your 
pointer. 

Silver  Medal:  Scat  by  Steve  Pietrowicz 
(AmigaZone  file  #6156) 

While  Ing!  was  based  on  the  same  con- 
cept, Scat  was  much  more  fun  to  play 
with.  Imagine  mutiny  by  the  windows  on 
your  screen  against  your  pointer— that's 
this  program. 

Bronze  Medal:  Vacbench  by  Randv 
Jouett  (AmigaZone  file  #9017) 

Besides  the  obvious  amusement  this 
GDH  provides,  Vacbench  could  actually 
be  put  to  use  if,  for  example,  you  have  a 
stray  graphic  element  on  your  Workbench 
screen  that  you  wanted  to  get  rid  of 

Honorable  Mention:  Viacom  by  Leo 

Schwab  (Fish  112) 

Leo  created  this  to  make  a  political 
statement  against  a  cable  company  whose 
service  he  felt  wasn't  up  to  par.  The  next 
time  someone  adjusts  the  antenna  or 
moves  a  piece  of  equipment  near  your 
Amiga,  give  'em  a  little  grief  by  running 
this  and  complaining  that  it  is  giving  you  | 
interference. 

Sound 

Gold  Medal:  Play  by  Mark  Rilev  (Amiga- 
Zone  file  #9421;  Shareware:  $10) 

Although  a  couple  of  SMUS  players 
(which  many  people  had  trouble  with)  did 
appear  before  it,  Play  is  generally  recog- 
nized as  the  first  PD  music  player  for  the 
Amiga.  All  Amiga  users  could  easily  dis- 
play pictures  and  animations,  but  until 
Play  came  along  it  wasn't  easy  to  show  off 
the  Amiga's  musical  talent  to  others  with- 


out actually  buying  a  commercial  music 
package.  Mark  Riley  performed  a  great 
service  to  the  Amiga  community  by  mak- 
ing music  accessible  to  all  Amiga  users. 

Silver  Medal:  LED  by  Mark  Riley 

i  AmigaZone  file  #7654) 

Commodore  helped  the  music  scene 
when  they  added  a  software  switch  in  the 
Amiga  500  and  2000  that  turns  the  low 
pass  audio  filter  off.  The  only  thing  that 
Commodore  didn't  do  was  to  actually  pro- 
vide a  program  on  the  Workbench  disk 
that  allowed  you  to  take  advantage  of  this 
new  feature.  Mark  has  provided  the  pro- 
gram to  allow  Amiga  500  2000  owners  to 
take  advantage  of  this  improvement  to 
their  machines. 

Other 

Gold  Medal:  Wordwright  by  RTL  Pro- 
gramming Aids  (AmigaZone  file  #8400 1 

It  is  certainly  nice  to  have  many  PD 
text  editors  available  for  the  Amiga,  but 
there  are  times  when  you  long  for  a  word 
processor  after  trying  to  force  your  favor- 
ite PD  text  editor  to  do  things  that  it  sim- 
ply wasn't  created  to  accomplish.  Word- 
wright  is  the  only  PD  word  processor 
available,  not  onlv  back  in  1987  but  even 
in  early  1988. 

Wordwright  isn't  a  bare  bones  pro- 
gram either.  Features  like  mail  merge,  an 
outliner,  a  general  set  of  utilities,  formula 
support  and  macros  beef  up  Wordwright. 
Many  users  complain  about  Word  win  ght 
once  they  start  to  get  serious  with  using  it, 
and  is  true  that  Wordwright's  user  inter- 
face isn't  designed  for  beginning  users. 
Nevertheless,  Wordwright  is  the  only  one 
available,  and  I  applaud  the  author  for  re- 
leasing it  (even  if  he  only  did  it  after  un- 
successfully trying  to  release  it  as  a  com- 
mercial product). 

Silver  Medal:  Programmer's  Suite  by  R.J. 

Mical  (Fish  107) 

There  are  tons  of  programming  exam- 
ples for  the  Amiga.  Most  of  these  arc  sim- 
ply the  source  code  listing  of  various  PD 
programs  that  have  been  attached  to  the 
archives  of  the  main  programs  them- 
selves. 

If  you  are  looking  for  more  than  just  an- 
other piece  of  source  code,  R.J.  Mical's  Pro- 
grammer's Suite  Book  One  is  a  very  help- 
ful set  of  tools  and  examples.  Book  One  of 
Programmer's  Suite  includes  several  dif- 
ferent routines  with  the  accompanying 
source  code,  including  a  color  file  request- 
er, a  fast  text  routine  plus  a  way  to  use 
custom  wait  pointers.  Just  as  important 
as  the  source  code  itself  were  make  files 


for  both  Aztec  and  lattice  C  compilers 
present  with  every  routine.  R.J.  didn't 
have  to  release  Book  One  as  PD.  he  could 
have  kept  his  original  plans  to  release  it 
as  a  commercial  product.  Instead  Amiga 
users  have  another  reason  to  thank  him. 

Bronze  Medal:  The  Final  List  by  Chet 
Solace 

Compared  to  all  the  PD  products  that  I 
have  seen  in  1987,  this  one  has  to  be  a 
horrible  nightmare  to  maintain.  How 
would  you  like  to  call  over  700  BBSs  in 
North  America  (not  including  a  few  dozen 
in  Australia  and  Europe)  each  month  in 
order  to  maintain  the  largest  Amiga  BBS 
listing  in  the  world  (and  probably  more 
extensive  than  any  other  listing  for  any 
other  computer)?  For  this  alone  Chet  Sol- 
ace deserves  a  salute,  but  it  doesn't  stop 
there. 

The  Final  List  is  by  default  a  phone  di- 
rectory that  is  compatible  with  almost  ev- 
en' Amiga  PD  terminal  program  (namely 
Communicator  and  all  of  its  children,  in- 
cluding AMIC  PD  TERM).  And  Chet  tries 
his  best  to  provide  supporting  information 
about  each  bulletin  board  listed  in  The  Fi- 
nal List  (even  if  the  information  regard- 
ing accessibility  via  PC-Pursuit  for  each 
bulletin  board  isn't  always  correct). 

I  hope  that  those  of  you  who  are  using 
The  Final  List  will  consider  helping  Chet 
to  keep  this  friendly  giant  alive  and  up-to- 
date  via  either  a  monetary  or  informa- 
tional contribution,  since  it  would  be  a 
shame  if  The  Final  List  has  to  be  taken 
down  due  to  lack  of  user  support. 

There  you  have  it — my  awards  for  the 
best  Amiga  PD  programs  of  1987.  Assum- 
ing that  I'll  be  around  for  another  year,  I 
will  be  picking  from  among  newly-re- 
leased  programs  for  possible  entries  into 
the  Amiga  PD  Hall  of  Fame  for  next  year. 

In  the  mean  time,  if  you  would  like  to 
recommend  a  program  to  be  inducted  into 
the  Amiga  PD  Hall  of  Fame  from  this 
group  (or  possibly  another  program,  al- 
though don't  consider  such  a  selection  to 
be  very  likely),  please  attempt  to  contact 
me  either  via  PeopleLink  (ID:  G  KIN- 
SEY),  or  on  the  IDCMP  BBS  (617)769- 
3172, 24  hours  a  day,  or  via  Commodore 
Magazine.  And,  of  course,  if  you  would 
also  like  to  nominate  a  PD  program  writ- 
ten in  1988  for  an  award  when  I  select  the 
Best  of  1988  Amiga  PD  programs  next 
year,  please  do  so.  Until  then,  I'll  hope 
you'll  be  keeping  up  with  the  newest  in 
Amiga  PD  programs  every  month  in  my 
regular  column  right  here  in  Commodore 
Magazine.  Q 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE     95 


Tips  &  Tricks/64  and  128 

Continued  from  page  13 

Word  processing  placeholder:  If  you're  working  on  a  long  docu- 
ment and  need  to  quit  for  the  moment,  it's  sometimes  hard  to  re- 
member where  you  were  working  when  you  quit.  The  same  trou- 
ble arises  when  you  need  to  move  temporarily  to  the  top  or  bot- 
tom of  the  document. 

You  can  make  it  easy  to  find  your  place  by  typing  one  or  more 
special  characters  before  you  move  away.  Then  just  use  your 
software's  Find  function  to  search  for  the  special  characters. 

I  often  use  two  asterisks,  dollar  signs  or  other  keyboard  char- 
acters as  m.v  placeholder.  Anything  at  all  will  work,  provided  it 
isn't  repeated  elsewhere  in  your  document. 
Arleigh 
Q-Link 

Organizing  word  processor  files:  If  you  do  much  writing  with 
your  word  processor,  it's  easy  to  accumulate  a  long  list  of  files 
stored  on  your  disk.  Pretty  soon  it  gets  hard  to  remember  which 
file  is  which,  and  it  gets  very  hard  to  retrieve  what  you  want 
from  the  disk. 

The  1581  drive  happily  increases  disk  storage  space,  but  it 
makes  this  problem  even  worse.  Here's  my  solution: 

1.  Format  a  blank  disk. 

2.  Create  a  blank  document  and  save  it  with  the  name  DI- 
RECTORY. 

3.  When  saving  a  letter  or  other  document,  name  it  with  the 
date  and  a  short  identifving  name.  For  example, 
070488JSMTTH  might  be  a  letter  written  to  John  Smith  on  July 
4, 1988. 

4.  As  soon  as  you  have  saved  such  a  document,  load  DIREC- 
TORY. 

5.  Add  the  new  letter's  name  to  DIRECTORY,  adding  a  few 
keywords.  In  our  example,  you  might  add  "070488JSMITH- 
Amiga-Software". 

6.  Resave  DIRECTORY.  When  it's  time  to  retrieve  your  letter. 
load  DIRECTORY  into  your  word  processor  and  use  the  Search 
or  Find  feature  to  look  for  the  keywords  you  remember. 
QTUTOR  bar 

Q-Link 

GEOS  and  the  Apple  LaserWriter:  If  you  u?e  an  80  dpi  dot  ma- 
trix printer  to  print  out  genWrite  files,  you  know  that  what  you 
see  on  the  screen  is  exactly  what  you  get  on  the  paper.  But  if  you 
use  an  Apple  I  LaserWriter  or  use  the  services  of  the  CEOS  Laser 
Printing  Center,  your  printed  output  does  not  always  look  as 
you  expect  it  to. 

This  is  because  even  the  CEOS  laser  fonts  cannot  perfectly 
duplicate  on  the  screen  the  LaserWriter's  letter  proportions  and 
spacing.  The  differences  are  most  pronounced  when  centering 
long  lines  of  outline  text^— the  LaserWriter  lines  will  be  printed 
too  close  to  the  left  margin  and  definitely  not  centered. 

Tb  center  outline  text  for  printing  on  the  LaserWriter,  first 
center  the  text  and  change  to  normal  style  (bold  for  bold-out- 
line). Then  place  a  tab  above  the  beginning  of  the  line  of  text. 
Next,  left  justify  the  text  and  change  to  outline  (or  lxild-outline) 
style.  Finally,  move  the  text  over  to  the  tab  with  CTRIA  If  the 
text  wraps  around  to  the  next  line,  you'll  either  have  to  move 
the  right  margin  to  the  right  or  shorten  the  line  of  text. 

I've  found  this  information  useful  when  using  geoPublish  to 
edit  our  local  Commodore  users  group  newsletter. 
Dave  Peterson 
Ames,  I  A 


GEOS  and  the  Panasonic  KX-P1080i:  lb  make  this  printer 
work  with  GEOS,  go  to  printer  setup  and  change  the  printer 
driver  to  MPS-1000. 
Saeed  Sadeghi 
Granada  Hills,  CA 

geoPublish  warning:  It  appears  that  geoPublish  addresses  files 
not  only  by  name,  but  also  by  position.  .Make  sure  that  all  the 
text,  photo  scrap  and  font  files  you  plan  to  use  are  on  the  disk 
that  you're  using. 

I  deleted  a  file  because  I  was  running  out  of  disk  space,  and  all 
of  a  sudden  I  got  errors  all  over  the  place  whenever  I  tried  to  rip- 
ple or  edit  any  text. 
Fortytude 
Q-Link 

Learning  BASIC:  Remember  last  month,  when  we  suggested 
downloading  the  Q-Link  program  BASIC  BASICSDA,  upload- 
ed by  LOU  SANDER1?  Here's  an  E-Mail  message  I  got  from  a 
Q-Linker  named  ENT 

'Thank  you  for  uploading  BASIC  BASIC.  I  have  had  my  com- 
puter for  over  a  year,  and  after  doing  the  first  section  of  BASIC 
BASIC  I  wrote  my  own  first  program!  Thank  you  again." 

Q-Linker  OMD1  says  "BASIC  BASIC  fills  half  a  disk  side, 
and  it's  explaining  BASIC  much  more  intelligibly  then  the  64C 
System  Guide  or  the  Programmer's  Reference  Guide" 
Louis  F.  Sander 
Pittsburgh.  PA 


Q-Link  repeating  keys:  If  you  want  your  keys  to  repeat  on  Q- 
Link,  just  enter  POKE  650,128  before  you  sign  on.  This  makes 
it  much  easier  to  draw  Q-graphics. 
IMD  Walrus 
Q-Link 

Q-Link  screen  names:  In  case  you're  wondering  about  those  fun- 
ny Q-Link  names,  each  Q-Link  subscriber  picks  his  own  "screen 
name"  or  "handle,"  by  which  he  becomes  known  to  all  other  Q- 
Linkers.  Screen  names  can  be  up  to  ten  characters  long,  and  the 
Q-Link  computers  ensure  against  duplication.  Each  subscriber 
account  can  have  up  to  five  different  screen  names,  to  allow  for 
several  family  members  using  the  same  disk. 

Some  of  the  names  are  quite  interesting,  as  are  most  of  the 
people.  A  few  of  my  favorites  are  TBEAR.  DOG  BRAIN,  SHE 
ELF  and  QUASMODEM.  One  "person,"  MELUTJR.  is  actual- 
ly a  furry  bunny  rabbit  (or  so  she  claims). 
Louis  F.  Sander 
Pittsburgh,  PA 

Disk  IDs:  If  you're  a  casual  computerist.  you  probably  don't  wor- 
ry about  assigning  a  different  ID  to  each  of  your  disks.  Under 
most  circumstances,  that's  fine,  since  the  ID  makes  no  difference 
whatsoever. 

But  it's  still  a  good  idea  to  implement  a  consistent  naming 
policy  that  avoids  duplication  of  disk  IDs,  because  there  are  two 
circumstances  where  duplicate  IDs  can  cause  trouble: 

1.  Some  software  that  uses  multiple  disks  does  not  run  proper- 
ly if  those  disks  have  identical  IDs. 

2.  Many  disk  library  organizing  programs  are  keyed  to  the 
disk  ID  and  thus  cannot  catalog  more  than  one  disk  with  the 
same  ID. 


%    AUGUST  1988 


ips  &  Tricks/64  and  128  

A  good  way  to  avoid  duplicate  IDs  is  to  make  up  a  card  the 
size  of  a  diskette  and  store  it  in  the  back  of  your  disk  file.  Each 
time  you  format  a  disk,  write  the  ID  on  this  card  in  its  proper  al- 
phabetical place.  If  you  follow  some  pattern  like  AA,  AB,  AC, 
AD  and  so  forth,  you'll  never  duplicate  an  ID  again. 
Arkigh 
Q-Link 

Thick  diskettes:  Is  it  hard  for  you  to  get  50  diskettes  into  a  disk 
holder  that  claims  to  be  able  to  store  that  number?  The  problem 
is  most  likely  with  the  disk  envelopes,  rather  than  with  the 
disks  themselves. 

If  your  disk  envelopes  are  made  of  thin  cardboard,  rather  than 
of  paper  or  indestructible  Tyvek>j,  the  disk  and  its  envelope  will 
be  as  much  as  half  again  as  thick  as  a  disk  in  a  thinner  enve- 
lope. (My  Verbatim  Datalifes  used  to  come  in  Tyvek,  but  the 
newest  box  came  in  cardboard.  The  new  ones  don 't  fit  well  in  my 
storage  boxes.  LFS) 

If  your  storage  problem  is  extreme,  you  can  buy  Tyvek  enve- 
lopes and  throw  the  cardboard  ones  away. 
John  Kuhne 
Newmarket,  Ontario 
Canada 

Colorful  disk  jackets:  If  you  ever  use  one  of  the  "disk  jacket 
printer"  programs,  try  this  little  trick  the  next  time. 

Load  and  run  your  favorite  graphics  utility  such  as  Print 
Shop  or  Print  Master.  Create  a  design  with  nothing  but  a  graph- 
ic. Then  re-insert  the  paper  back  into  the  printer,  with  the 
graphic  facing  the  printhead.  Load  your  favorite  disk  jacket 
printer,  and  print  the  jacket  over  the  graphic. 

Cut  out  your  new  stylish  disk  jacket,  and  see  the  look  of  envy 
on  everybody's  face. 
Earl  Hartison 
Address  Unknown 

1571  storage  limitation:  The  1571  drive  can  store  twice  as  much 
data  on  its  double-sided  disks  as  the  1541.  All  is  not  perfect, 
though.  The  1571's  directory  is  the  same  size  as  the  1541's — 144 
files  maximum. 

Granted,  this  is  a  somewhat  trivial  limitation,  unless  you're 
storing  many  small  files  (like  configuration  files  I  on  the  disk. 
On  the  1541,  you  could  store  144  four-block  files  and  end  up 
wasting  88  blocks  because  the  directory  is  full.  On  a  1571,  you 
could  still  store  only  144  four-block  files,  but  you'd  be  wasting 
752  blocks  of  the  disk— the  original  88  blocks  plus  the  entire 
second  side! 
Charles  Lavin 
Coral  Gables,  FL 

128  DRAW  statement:  This  statement  is  more  versatile  than 
you  might  think.  The  single  statement 

DRAW  160,100,50,50,35,35,190,190 
will  draw  four  different  points  on  the  screen.  Also, 

DRAW  160,100  TO  300,100,50,50  TO  50,100 
will  draw  two  separate  lines,  without  having  to  execute  a  sepa- 
rate DRAW  statement  for  each  one. 
IMD  Walrus 
Q-Link 

128  line  counter:  Have  you  ever  wondered  how  many  lines  it 
took  to  make  that  program?  If  you  own  a  128,  all  you  have  to  do 


is  enter  RENUMBER  1,1  and  list  the  program.  The  last  line 

number  is  your  answer. 

VictorP6 

Q-Link 

128  error  messages:  Enter  the  words  QUIT  or  OFF  in  direct 

mode,  and  your  128  will  surprise  you  with  an  ?UNTMPLE- 

MENTED  COMMAND  ERROR.  You  won't  find  that  in  the 

manual! 

John Kuhne 

Newmarket,  Ontario 

Canada 

Mark  your  fanfold  paper:  When  using  fanfold  paper,  it's  very 
desirable  to  know  where  the  pages  end  so  the  paper  can  be  prop- 
erly lined  up  in  the  printer.  As  soon  as  I  open  a  new  box  of  paper, 
I  take  a  bright  red  or  orange  bread  tip  permanent  marker  and 
mark  a  stripe  down  all  four  corners  of  the  paper. 

I  make  the  mark  on  the  folded  edge  of  the  strip  of  sprocket 
holes  outside  the  perforations.  The  alcohol  base  of  the  marker 
allows  the  ink  to  soak  through  the  paper,  so  at  the  end  of  each 
page  a  little  red  line  can  be  seen  at  all  the  corners.  This  red  line 
is  the  end  of  the  page  and  can  easily  be  used  to  align  the  paper 
in  the  printer. 

When  the  printing  is  done  and  the  sprocket  strip  is  torn  off  at 
the  perforations,  the  red  lines  go  with  the  sprocket  strip,  leaving 
the  pages  themselves  unmarked. 

This  simple  procedure  takes  about  two  minutes  with  each  box 
of  paper,  and  has  been  a  great  convenience  to  me  for  years. 
Bernard  J.  Suss/nan 
Washington,  B.C. 

Printouts  from  the  machine  language  monitor:  The  128's  built- 
in  machine  language  monitor  is  a  wonderful  tool  for  exploring 
the  computer's  memory,  as  are  the  many  monitors  available  for 
the  64. 

It's  frequently  desirable  to  get  a  printout  of  the  monitor  dis- 
play, but  unfortunately  most  of  the  manuals  neglect  to  tell  you 
how  to  do  it.  In  most  cases,  it's  very  easy  to  get  such  a  printout. 
Just  try  the  following  steps: 

1.  In  direct  mode,  enter  OPEN  4,4:CMD4  <RETURN> 

2.  Enter  your  machine  language  monitor.  (On  the  128,  this  is 
done  by  typing  MONITOR  <RETURN>  or  by  pressing  the  F8 
key.) 

3.  Type  in  the  monitor  command.  If  all  is  well,  what  normally 
would  be  displayed  on  your  screen  will  be  sent  to  your  printer. 

To  avoid  having  funny  things  happen  later  on,  go  back  to  BA- 
SIC'S direct  mode  and  enter  PRTNT#4:CLOSE4  <RETURN>. 
Richard  Murphy 
Tahlequah,  Ok 

Blue  Chip  printers:  These  popular  printers  use  the  same  rib- 
bons as  the  Commodore  MPS  802. 

If  you  have  a  program  that  doesn't  list  the  Blue  Chip  as  one  of 
the  printers  it  supports,  set  the  program  up  for  the  Epson  FX. 
John  Kreps 
Grapevine,  TX 

Microlllustrator  tip:  In  this  Tech  Sketch  program,  the  magnify 

mode  is  very  slow  to  move  until  the  third  or  fourth  time  you  hit 

the  SHIFT  key.  Hitting  and  releasing  SHIFT  LOCK  has  the 

same  result  and  never  fails. 

ZaphoddB 

Q-Link  9 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE     97 


Gold  Mine 

Continued  from  pagv  1 7 

Hardball:  It's  easier  to  hit  the  ball  by  just  pushing  the  button  in- 
stead of  swinging  high,  low,  left  or  right. 
CliffCongo 
Manassas,  VA 

Hardball:  When  you're  in  the  outfield,  throw  the  ball  to  first 
base  instead  of  to  second.  It  gets  there  much  faster. 
Mark  Bickle 
Oregon,  OH 

Harrier  Attack:  At  the  beginning  of  the  game,  bring  the  Hani- 
er  down  so  it's  just  above  the  water's  surface,  then  add  thrust  un- 
til you  get  in  front  of  the  battleship.  Fire  your  rockets  and  watch 
your  score  soar  up  to  265.000  points.  This  will  help  you  in  the 
later  stages  of  the  game. 
Donovan  Botelho 
Victorville,  CA 

Infiltrator:  Get  your  spray  ready  while  the  guards  are  checking 
your  ID  outside  the  buildings.  Many  times  the  guard  can  sound 
the  alarm  before  the  spray  takes  effect. 

It's  a  good  idea  not  to  use  explosives  outside  the  building, 
since  the  noise  may  alert  the  guards. 

On  the  second  board,  always  rescue  the  Professor  first.  If  you 
blow  up  the  laboratory  first,  the  guards  will  almost  always  find 
your  papers  not  in  order. 
Nathan  Tison 
Pontiac,  MI 

Rung  Fu  Master:  To  beat  the  Master  on  Level  V:  Two  kicks  go- 
ing up  and  down  alternately;  two  punches  the  same  way;  a  drop 
kick  and  a  low  kick  will  finish  him  off.  Practice  Level  V  for  a 
while,  and  pretty  soon  you'll  be  a  master  yourself. 
Shane  Dolha 
Address  Unknown 

Labyrinth:  In  the  hedge  maze,  it's  important  to  take  the  brace- 
let. You'll  need  it  later  in  the  game. 

In  the  Door  Knockers  room;  ask  knocker,  hit  knocker,  insert 
bracelet,  open  door.  You're  now  in  the  Stone  Faces  maze. 

In  the  Wise  Man's  Garden:  save  the  game,  walk  to  the  Wise 
Man,  then  "take."  You  now  have  a  rule  book  for  Sir  Didymus. 
Ask  Wise  Man  and  he'll  tell  you  how  to  get  out.  Give  quarter.  If 
he  keeps  saying  something  about  "the  hands  of  the  clock  and 
the  path  of  the  ninth  hour,"  ask  him  two  more  times  then  'load 
game."  This  time  he'll  give  the  right  answer  when  you  ask  him. 
Keith  Welshonse 
Lynnwood,  CA 

Legacy  of  the  Ancients:  If  you're  having  trouble  finding  coins 
for  the  exhibits,  try  going  twice  to  some  of  the  dungeons.  Also 
when  in  a  dungeon,  always  examine  each  hall  for  hidden  traps. 

Never  carry  all  your  money  around  with  you. 
Paul  Chktti 
Manassas,  VA 

Legacy  of  the  Ancients:  When  you're  in  the  dungeon  west  of  Ea- 
gle Hollow,  watch  out  for  the  Knucklers,  Giant  Slugs  and  Dan- 
glers. Instead  of  fighting  it  out  with  them,  use  either  a  Magic 
Flame  or  a  Firebolt;  these  monsters  do  severe  damage  in  their 
own  special  way. 


When  you  get  out  of  the  dungeon  with  the  crown,  go  to  the 
castle  and  look  for  the  sceptre.  It's  behind  the  door  that  won't 
open  with  the  stone  key;  use  the  iron  key  that  the  caretaker 
gave  you. 

After  getting  the  sceptre,  go  to  the  caretaker,  who  will  give 
you  a  magic  ice.  You  have  to  use  it  when  standing  in  front  on  the 
little  river  that  separates  the  two  parts  of  the  castle  while  you're 
invisible. 
Zi  Wang 
Kew  Gardens,  NY 

Lode  Runner:  Having  trouble  passing  the  various  levels?  Tired 
of  losing  men  needlessly  on  one  particular  screen?  To  advance  to 
the  next  level  of  play,  just  press  SHTFTAj,  and  all  your  problems 
will  be  solved! 
Timothy  Schmidt 
New  Iberia,  LA 

Ninja:  To  get  a  lot  of  extra  points,  keep  going  into  the  Akuma's 
Chambers,  but  don't  use  weapons.  When  you  don't  think  you 
can  get  any  more  men.  go  down  to  Torii  by  the  Sea. 
Todd  Gunnerson 
Canaan,  NH 

The  Pawn:  To  open  the  shed,  get  the  metal  key  from  under  the 
mat  in  the  Palace  Garden.  The  wooden  key  opens  the  door  in  the 
Forest.  To  find  the  door,  go  to  the  forest  clearing,  go  south  and 
climb  the  tree. 

To  make  light,  you  must  do  five  things.  First,  take  your  shirt 
and  tie  it  to  your  wristband,  which  stops  the  Guru  from  laugh- 
ing at  you.  Second,  go  to  the  Guru,  who  will  ask  you  to  get  him  a 
drink  of  water;  take  his  bowl.  Third,  go  to  the  top  of  the  moun- 
tain and  put  snow  in  the  bowl.  Return  to  the  Guru  and  give  him 
the  bowl  containing  the  water;  he  will  give  you  a  message.  Fi- 
nally, go  to  the  forest  clearing  and  examine  the  tree  stump, 
where  you'll  find  a  bag  containing  three  colored  stones.  Mix 
them  together  to  form  one  glowing  stone.  Light,  at  last! 

To  move  a  boulder  out  of  your  path,  tie  your  shirt  to  the  hoe 
and  rake  to  form  a  lever  which  will  move  the  boulder. 

The  couch  in  the  underground  living  room  can  be  examined 
for  Fergs.  Take  the  hard  hat  before  entering  the  mine. 
Brian  Lambert 
Leisure  City,  FL 

Planetfall:  The  curved  metal  bar  is  a  magnet.  Keep  it  away 
from  access  cards.  To  get  the  key,  hold  the  magnet  near  the  crev- 
ice; then  drop  the  magnet  to  avoid  all  risk  of  erasures. 

Floyd  has  an  access  card,  so  turn  him  off  and  search  him. 
Stephen  E.  Mynhier 
Lake  City,  FL 

Pure-Stat  Baseball:  After  your  player  has  been  walked,  watch 
how  quickly  he  gets  to  first  base.  If  he  arrives  just  after  the 
pitcher  catches  the  ball,  he  should  be  able  to  steal  second  easily. 
If  you  put  the  Hit  and  Run  on  when  attempting  to  steal,  he'll 
have  an  even  better  chance. 
FredDePaoli 
Hammond,  IN 

Ramho:  On  the  first  level,  save  your  exploding  arrows.  Use 
throwing  knives  until  you  get  the  POW.  Once  you  touch  him 
and  he  disappears,  use  your  exploding  arrows  to  blast  the  trees 
on  your  way  up  to  the  chopper. 


98    AUGUST  1988 


Gold  Mine ~ 

For  an  easy  3,000  points,  go  past  the  machine  gun  on  the  first 
level.  Keep  going  on  the  other  side  of  the  building  until  it  is  out 
of  the  screen.  Come  back  and  touch  the  machine  gun,  collecting 
your  3,000  points! 
Curtis  MacPherson 
Address  Unknown 

Rambo  First  Blood  Part  II:  When  you  stall  this  game,  try  run- 
ning straight  forward  without  shooting.  If  you're  lucky,  all  the 
enemies  will  magically  disappear  until  you  reach  the  fort. 
JeffNess 
Address  Unknown 

Seven  Cities  of  Gold:  If  you  continuously  attack  the  natives  you 
will  eliminate  them.  If  you  attempt  to  eliminate  the  Poor  Hun- 
ter/Gatherer, the  natives  go  into  a  strange  slow-motion  dance, 
during  which  time  passes  very  rapidly.  Once  they  start  the 
dance,  you  should  eliminate  them  as  quickly  as  possible. 
Richard  Ambrose 
Naples,  FL 

Skyfox:  On  the  higher  levels  it's  often  wise  just  to  head  into  an 
enemy  unit,  blow  them  away  with  missiles,  then  head  for  home 
for  a  new  batch  of  missiles. 
Richard  Ambrose 
Naples,  FL 

Spy  Hunter:  If  you're  in  the  desert  or  on  the  icy  roads,  follow  the 
weapons  van.  As  long  as  you  follow  it,  the  helicopter  will  not  ap- 
pear. When  a  new  weapons  van  is  about  to  appear,  destroy  the 
old  one — otherwise  the  new  one  will  never  appear. 
Quae  Nguyen 
Tacoma,  WA 

Spy  vs.  Spy  —  The  Island  Caper:  Plant  coconut  bombs  and  punji 
pits  at  the  openings  at  the  top  and  bottom  of  the  screen  (make 
sure  you  don't  fall  into  your  own  traps  1.  Your  opponent  will  have 
no  way  of  avoiding  them. 

Also,  when  your  opponent  has  the  three  missile  parts  and  is 
trying  to  get  off  the  island  and  onto  his  sub,  plant  bombs  and 
pits  on  the  shores  of  the  island. 

If  your  enemy  is  looking  for  a  missile  part  that  you  own,  drop 
it  near  a  tree  and  plant  a  snare  right  on  top  of  it.  The  enemy  will 
think  he's  getting  a  break  when  he  sees  the  piece  out  in  the 
open,  but  all  of  a  sudden  he'll  be  up  in  the  tree. 
Brian  Larson 
Delavan,  WI 

Summer  Games  II:  The  world  records  are  on  Track  18,  Sector 
13.  You  can  change  them  if  you  have  a  track  and  sector  editor. 
Make  sure  you  do  it  on  a  backup,  because  one  mistake  can  ruin 
your  disk. 
Mark  Cosentino 
Lincoln  Park,  NJ 

Super  Zaxxon:  In  the  tunnel,  the  enemy  planes  will  go  slower  if 
you  keep  the  fire  button  down. 

To  get  through  the  force  field  in  the  second  scene,  match  the 
lines  on  the  wall  and  on  your  altimeter.  Go  slightly  higher  than 
the  line  on  your  altimeter,  and  you  can  safely  go  through  every 
shield  until  you  reach  the  dragon.  But  watch  out  for  obstacles 
that  get  in  your  way. 

To  destroy  the  dragon,  put  the  altimeter  to  the  fourth  line  and 


shoot  him  six  times  in  the  mouth. 
Howard  Weisbaum 
New  York,  NY 

Ultima  II:  To  get  gold  easily,  get  a  boat.  To  get  a  boat,  get  a  blue 
tassel,  then  bring  a  pirate  ship  to  land,  get  on  top  of  it,  press 
Board  and  move.  Then  use  Fire  to  destroy  him  and  all  the  other 
monsters  you  encounter. 
Jason  A.Nikolai 
Mosinee,  WI 

Ultima  III:  There's  no  set  solution  to  this  game,  even  with  these 
tips.  Try  forming  a  party  and  transfer  all  food,  money  and  weap- 
ons to  one  member.  Quit  and  save  the  game. 

When  you  have  everything  you  want,  give  bows  to  your  two 
front  men,  providing  they  can  handle  them;  bows  hit  targets  at 
long  distances. 

If  playing  with  a  Cleric,  give  him  25  wisdom  points— that  will 
give  you  a  major  step  in  magic  points. 
Jimmy  Prince 
Howell  NJ 

Ultima  IV:  The  Undead  spell  uses  Sulfurous  Ash  and  Garlic. 
Cast  it  when  fighting  skeletons  and  ghosts. 

The  Gate  Travel  spell  uses  Sulfurous  Ash,  Black  Pearl  and 
Mandrake  Root,  and  costs  you  40  points. 

Resurrection  is  the  opposite  of  Kill,  so  it  uses  the  Reagents  not 
found  in  the  Kill  spell— Reagents  A,  B,  C,  D,  E  and  H. 
Patrick  Lindsay 
Heidelberg,  Germany 

Ultima  IV:  When  getting  Mandrake  Root,  get  a  horse  and  go  to 
the  single  patch  of  swamp  in  the  Bloody  Plains.  While  on  the 
patch,  exit  the  horse  and  search  the  patch  when  both  moons  en- 
ter the  new  moon  stage.  Keep  searching  and  finding  Mandrake 
Root  until  the  moons  change  their  status.  You  can  have  up  to  99 
of  each  reagent,  so  I  suggest  you  fill  up  on  Mandrake  and  Night- 
shade. 

Craig  Massee 
Address  Unknown 

Uridium:  For  infinite  lives,  load  the  game,  reset  the  computer, 
then  enter: 

POKE  3427.187  <RETURN> 

SYS  2304  <RETURN> 
Adrian  Zenker 
Buenos  Aires,  Argentina 

Winter  Games:  As  soon  as  you  start  playing  Hot  Dog,  put  the 
joystick  diagonally  NW,  holding  it  there  for  about  a  second. 
I  Then  push  it  to  the  right  and  complete  the  flip.  If  done  correctly, 
you'll  glide  in  for  a  perfect  landing  and  get  a  score  of  10. 
Todd  Gunnerson 
Canaan,  NH 

Wizard's  Crown:  To  enter  the  third  dungeon,  you  need  the  em- 
erald key  which  you'll  find  in  a  skeleton  on  the  second  level  of 
the  old  thieves  guild.  Once  you  enter,  construct  the  golem  staff 
and  find  the  password  to  the  fourth  and  final  dungeon.  The  pass- 
word is  ROBIN. 

To  save  time  and  trouble,  avoid  gnarled  trees,  wardpact  de- 
mons, dragons  and  veteran  adventurers. 
Jason  Rothstein 
Quebec,  Canada 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE     99 


roy  Lyndon:  Defender  of  the  Commodore  Crown 


Continued  from  page  61 

thing  from  each  other:  We  want  to  make 
our  lives  easier  to  live.  This  feeling  of 
teamwork  has  helped  us  get  through  the 
rough  spots. 

Our  plans  for  the  future  include  a  vari- 
ety of  development  possibilities.  Being 
that  all  of  our  programmers  program  in 
assembly  language  and  have  extensive 
backgrounds,  any  of  them  could  move  into 
writing  utilities  or  business  software  with 
virtually  little  or  no  learning  curve.  How- 
ever, do  not  fret.  We  will  always  do  games 
as  long  as  loyal  customers  enjoy  enter- 
tainment products. 

This  fall  we  will  be  releasing  what  I  con- 
sider our  third  generation  of  software.  Di- 

Arcade  machines  have  one 
purpose:  to  deliver  a  single 
game  to  the  consumer  for  a 
quarter.  Microcomputers,  on 
the  other  hand,  are  very 
versatile. 

gitized  sound  and  music  will  appear  in 
most  of  our  games,  but  what  I  am  most  ex- 
cited about  is  our  ability  to  scroll  the 
screen  around  in  a  playing  area  of  50  to 
100  screens. 

Jermaine:  Is  it  true  that  you  worked  on 
Defender  of  the  Crown? 
Lyndon:  Yes,  John  Cutter  and  I  pro- 
grammed three  of  the  four  action  se- 
quences in  the  64  version  of  the  game. 
Bob  Jacob,  at  Cinemaware.  gave  me  a  call 
one  day.  He  wondered  if  I  could  get  him 
out  of  a  sticky  situation.  His  programmer 
definitely  needed  some  help  in  order  to 
finish  Defender  of  the  Crown  by  its  project- 
ed release  date.  He  outlined  what  he 
wanted  done,  and  we  finished  the  job  three 
weeks  later. 

Probably  the  most  significant  scenario 
of  Defender  of  the  Crown  was  the  joust 
tournament.  I  liked  it  because  we  gave 
you  the  unique  illusion  of  bouncing  along 
on  the  back  of  a  horse.  This  effect  was  ac- 
tually pretty  easy  to  generate.  Basically 
you  set  the  "Y"  scroll  register  between  0 
and  7  to  make  the  computer  image  move 
up  and  down  and  start  experimenting 
with  different  number  combinations. 
After  running  a  series  of  teste,  I  came  up 
with  the  answer:  024677766420.  When 
this  sequence  is  repeated  at  a  rapid  rate  of 
speed,  one  bounce  after  another  takes 
place  on  the  screen.  The  joust  scenario 
also  contains  another  unusual  feature.  As 


you  charge  your  opponent,  the  other  horse 
and  rider  are  the  only  items  in  the  picture 
that  appear  to  get  closer.  Background  ob- 
jects like  tents,  the  railing,  etc.  always 
stay  exactly  the  same  size.  It's  strange 
that  most  players  aren't  aware  of  this  fact, 
but  the  sensation  of  riding  the  horse 
seems  to  camouflage  this  obvious  attempt 
to  simplify  things. 

There  were  two  sword  play  animations 
in  Defender  of  the  Crown.  John  and  I  did 
the  one  where  the  knights  are  fighting  in- 
side the  castle.  Even  though  the  game 
play  of  this  Commodore  64  challenge 
could  have  been  better,  it's  an  improve- 
ment over  that  of  the  Amiga  version.  The 
final  arcade  sequence  was  the  catapult 
scene.  As  each  rock  was  fired  at  the  castle 
wall,  we  had  to  visually  construct  a  new 
wall  (displaying  more  damage  than  the 
previous  one).  With  both  of  us  working  to- 
gether on  these  challenging  mini-games, 
everything  went  smoothly,  and  we  fin- 
ished things  up  by  the  end  of  March. 
Jermaine:  How  did  you  become  involved 
with  Capcom? 

Lyndon:  I  met  Joe  Moiici.  Vice  President 
of  Sales  and  Marketing  at  Capcom,  dur- 
ing the  early  days  of  1987.  We  quickly  ne- 
gotiated a  deal,  where  Lyndon  and  Associ- 
ates would  develop  a  series  of  microcom- 
puter arcade  game  conversions  (for  them 
to  market ).  By  the  way,  this  agreement 
,  has  worked  out  well  for  both  parties. 
Jermaine:  Tell  me  how  a  coin-op  arcade 
game  conversion  is  made. 
Lyndon:  First  of  all,  we  storyboard  all  of 
the  things  that  have  to  be  present  in  the 
game.  Once  the  storyboards  have  been  ap- 
proved by  the  publisher,  it's  time  to  dis- 
cuss the  size  of  the  computer  players,  all  of 
the  technical  limitations,  trade-offs,  etc. 
When  every  detail  of  the  computer  game 
has  been  mapped  out  on  paper  (in  terms  of 
technical  specifications),  Capcom  OKs 
things  again  before  we  actually  begin  the 
development  process.  As  far  as  develop- 
ment time  goes,  20%  of  it  is  used  to  gener- 
ate the  sounds  and  music,  25%  goes  into 
graphic  design,  and  the  remaining  55%'  is 
needed  to  program  the  code. 

We  also  entertain  visitors  from  Capcom 
about  every  30-60  days.  They  come  to  see 
the  progress  we've  made  and  tell  us  what 
they  like  and  dislike  about  the  product.  I 
personally  approve  of  these  visits  because 
it  gets  more  people  involved  in  the  devel- 
opment process.  If  everything  goes  well, 
the  game  should  be  finished  in  six  to  nine 
months  (depending  upon  the  complexity 
of  the  project). 

Jermaine:  What  are  "trade-offs'? 
Lyndon:  Whenever  we  translate  a  coin-op 


theme  to  the  microcomputer  environment 
certain  elements  of  the  arcade  game  can 
never  appear  in  the  64  program  (because 
of  memory  restrictions).  To  compensate  for 
these  absences,  we  usually  dress  up  the 
graphics  and  make  things  more  attractive 
by  adding  some  new  ones.  This  is  our  way 
of  giving  the  consumer  the  most  product 
for  his  hard-earned  dollar. 

Hat  Trictfs  programmed 
intelligence  is  a  good 
example  of  how  computer 
logic  should  be  implemented 
in  a  game:  it's  very  simple 
but  effective. 


Jermaine:  What  have  you  learned  about 
coin-op  arcade  games  in  general? 
Lyndon:  To  begin  with,  the  standard  vid- 
eo machine  has  from  1-2  megabytes  of 
memory.  This  factor  allows  them  to  move 
a  large  number  of  objects  around  the 
screen  at  any  given  time.  The  graphics 
themselves  are  generally  displayed  and 
stored  in  a  totally  different  manner'  than 
the  way  we  perform  the  same  operations 
on  microcomputers.  Everything  is  basical- 
ly more  cryptic  in  nature.  Arcade  games 
also  contain  approximately  16  dip  switch- 
es. These  switches  allow  us  to  enter  a  test 
mode,  change  the  perspective  of  the  game, 
advance  to  a  particular  level  of  play,  etc. 
Their  presence  makes  it  easier  to  map  out 
every  inch  of  a  game  during  a  short  period 
of  time. 

We're  also  discovering  advanced  digital 
sampling  in  some  of  the  new  machines. 
Digital  sampling  is  a  special  technology 
where  you  take  a  particular  sound  in  the 
real  world,  reduce  it  to  a  pattern  of  num- 
bers that  the  computer  understands,  store 
that  data  in  memory  and  have  the  ability 
to  play  it  back  as  it  originally  sounded. 
Believe  it  or  not,  several  home  computer 
games  already  feature  digital  sampling 
sound  effects,  but  the  ones  in  coin-op  ma- 
chines are  naturally  more  sophisticated. 

Before  we  leave  this  subject,  I'd  like  to 
give  you  another  explanation  of  why  these 
two  systems  are  so  drastically  different. 
Arcade  machines  have  one  purpose:  they 
are  designed  to  deliver  a  single  game  to 
the  consumer  for  the  price  of  a  quarter. 
Microcomputers,  on  the  other  hand,  are 
very  versatile.  They  are  capable  of  per- 
forming a  number  of  different  tasks. 
Jermaine:  Would  you  share  a  few  secrets 
about  the  making  of  Speed  Humbler? 


100    AUGUST  1988 


Troy  Lyndon:  Defender  of  the  Commodore  Crown- 


Lyndon:  That  project  forced  me  to  develop 
the  fastest  scrolling  effect  I've  done  to 
date.  I  was  also  moving  up  to  32  objects  on 
the  screen  at  one  time.  Speed  Humbler  is 
a  good  solid  challenge,  but  we  could  have 
made  it  better  by  reducing  the  number  of 
moving  objects  to  16  and  improving  the 
quality  of  graphics. 

Jermaine:  I  understand  Hat  Trick  is  one  of 
your  favorite  games.  Why  is  that  so? 
Lyndon:  Hat  Trick  had  an  interesting 
problem:  it  was  the  first  program  I  had 
programmed  at  a  clock,  speed  faster  than 
60  game  loops  per  second.  In  most  com- 
puter games,  we  have  something  called  a 
raster  interrupt.  Basically  the  system  per- 
forms one  task  for  a  while,  then  it  sudden- 
ly does  something  different.  When  that  cy- 
cle has  been  completed,  the  computer  ei- 
ther returns  to  performing  the  original 
task,  or  it  does  something  else  for  a  period 
of  time.  In  my  games  I  always  like  to 
know  where  the  raster  is  on  the  screen. 
Being  that  I  didn't  have  to  move  many  ob- 
jects, I  elected  to  use  a  clock  speed  of  240 
game  loops  per  second.  This  approach 
gave  me  ultra-fluid  player  motion,  while 
making  it  easy  to  simulate  the  sensation 
ofskatingonice. 

The  Hat  Trick  computer  logic  is  also 
easy  to  understand.  First  of  all,  skill  levels 
were  based  on  how  quickly  your  opponent 
gathered  information.  If  you  were  playing 
at  a  high  skill  level,  for  example,  your  ad- 
versary was  processing  data  very  quickly. 
In  lower  levels  of  play  he  performed  the 
same  operation  but  not  as  often.  In  other 
words,  fast  is  smart  and  slow  is  dumb.  His 
main  objective  was  to  go  after  the  puck 
(wherever  it  was  located  on  the  ice). 

Goalie  logic  was  equally  simple  in  na- 
ture. The  goalie  shifted  his  position  to 
match  the  up  and  down  movements  of  the 
puck.  Once  the  puck  was  a  certain  dis- 
tance from  the  goal,  he  became  interac- 
tive and  aggressively  moved  toward  it. 
These  rules  of  action  were  easy  to  enforce, 
and  they  made  your  opponent  smart 
enough  to  give  you  a  superior  challenge. 
Hat  Trick's  programmed  intelligence  is  a 
good  example  of  how  computer  logic 
should  be  implemented  in  a  game:  it's 
very  simple  but  effective. 
Jermaine:  Can  you  give  me  a  sneak  pre- 
view of  what  lies  ahead? 
Lyndon:  As  you  read  this  interview,  some 
of  these  products  may  be  on  the  shelves  of 
your  favorite  computer  store.  Where  Cap- 
com's  1942  program  had  you  shooting 
down  Japanese  aircraft,  1943  teleports 
you  to  the  Battle  of  Midway  This  time, 
you're  going  after  ships  as  well  as  planes. 


Sarge  (another  Capcom  release)  is  an  in- 
teresting military  game  where  the  player 
must  evade  and  destroy  enemy  tanks  and 
helicopters.  We're  also  working  on  a  new 
joystick-driven  "sword  and  sorcery''  ar- 
cade game. 

Another  project  is  being  done  for  the 
Gamestar  division  of  Acti vision.  Mike 
Suarez  acted  as  producer  of  the  project.  Fi- 
nally, Street  Fighter  is  our  latest  and 
greatest.  The  game  combines  great  ani- 
mation with  superior  payability  and  is 
my  all-time  favorite. 

Jermaine:  I  heard  you  recently  took  a  trip 
to  Japan.  Why  did  you  go  and  what  did 
you  learn  from  the  experience? 
Lyndon:  During  October  of  1987, 1  spent  a 
couple  of  weeks  at  the  corporate  head- 
quarters of  Capcom.  I  was  there  to  study 
new  methods  of  creating  coin-op  arcade 
conversions  on  home  computer  systems. 
After  arriving  at  the  airport,  I  was  initial- 
ly surprised  to  discover  the  cab  drivers 
over  there  wore  white  gloves  and  drove 
Mercedes  automobiles. 

The  Japanese  programmers  are  equally 
eccentric.  They  were  blunt  and  to  the 
point  when  it  came  to  talking  about  their 
work,  I  think  that's  partially  due  to  the 
fact  they  have  trouble  speaking  English. 
It's  also  interesting  to  note  that  they  liter- 
ally think  in  terms  of  right  to  left  (the 
same  way  that  they  read).  When  I  first  ex- 
amined the  graphic  format  of  their  game 

If  you  examine  the  latest 
marketing  statistics,  you  will 
discover  that  64  software 
sales  have  shown  a  steady 
increase  over  the  last  four 
quarters. 

code  I  had  a  tough  time  figuring  it  out. 

As  far  as  developing  software  goes, 
some  of  their  tools  are  good  and  some  of 
them  aren't.  Our  microcomputer  artists' 
tools  are  generally  better  than  those 
found  in  Japan. 

One  more  thing  should  be  mentioned 
here:  there  is  a  definite  difference  between 
Americanized  Japanese  food  and  tradi- 
tional Japanese  food.  For  a  meal  over 
there,  I  ate  several  marble-sized  items 
with  a  pair  of  chopsticks.  By  the  end  of  the 
first  day,  I  was  dying  to  get  my  hands  on  a 
Big  Mac.  Incidentally,  the  people  of  Japan 
are  excellent  hosts.  They  really  go  out  of 
their  way  to  entertain  their  guests. 

While  we're  talking  about  my  trip,  it 
might  be  fun  to  compare  the  typical  Japa- 


nese game  developer  with  his  counterpart 
here  in  the  States.  Microcomputer  pro- 
grammers in  Japan  generally  earn 
around  $30-40,000  a  year,  which  is  hard  to 
compare  to  what  we  make  in  America. 
Different  companies  over  here  have  differ- 
ent pay  scales.  Programmers  in  both 
countries  work  from  40-80  hours  a  week. 
Sometimes  it  becomes  necessary  to  work 
even  longer  hours.  As  far  as  the  standard 
of  living  goes,  a  large  percentage  of  the 
Japanese  programmers  live  at  home  with 
their  families.  If  you  saw  the  price  of  prop- 
erty in  that  country,  you'd  know  why. 

We  recently  took  all  of  our  employees  to 
Disneyland  for  a  day.  Every  week  or  two  I 
order  pizzas  for  lunch,  so  we  can  sit 
around  and  discuss  what's  going  on  in- 
house.  I  think  I  can  safely  say  most  of  our 
competition  (in  the  United  States)  does 
the  same  sort  of  things.  In  Japan,  software 
companies  are  generally  not  as  easygoing 
as  their  American  cousins. 
Jermaine:  How  do  you  write  your  games? 
Lyndon:  Our  development  process  is  done 
in  two  stages:  (1 )  The  assembler  is  operat- 
ed on  an  IBM  PC,  and  (2)  the  de-bugger, 
which  is  more  or  less  an  interactive  de- 
bugger, runs  simultaneously  on  both  the 
PC  and  a  Commodore  64.  All  source  mate- 
rial is  written  on  the  IBM  PC.  We  use  the 
PC  to  get  code  into  the  64,  the  systems  in- 
teract with  each  other,  and  the  program  is 
gradually  de-bugged.  When  the  process  is 
completed,  the  programmer  sees  the  end 
results  on  the  64  only.  This  excellent  as- 
sembler was  developed  by  Ken  Rose  and 
Jack  Thornton,  while  the  de-bugger  was 
written  by  Mike  Schwartz. 
Jermaine:  Why  are  you  still  developing 
games  for  the  Commodore  64? 
Lyndon:  If  you  examine  the  latest  mar- 
keting statistics,  you  will  discover  that  64 
software  sales  have  shown  a  steady  in- 
crease over  the  last  four  quarters.  This  in- 
formation convinces  me  that  the  Commo- 
dore 64  will  have  a  strong  following  for  at 
least  one  more  year.  After  that,  I  can  only 
speculate  what  will  happen.  A  lot  of  peo- 
ple have  been  following  the  ever-growing 
IBM  PC  market.  I  certainly  hope  as  the 
game  industry  continues  to  write  software 
for  the  PC,  it  doesn't  lose  sight  of  the  valu- 
able Commodore  64  consumer.  I  can  tell 
you  that  I  certainly  will  not. 

By  the  way,  Pacific  Dataworks  is  look- 
ing for  a  few  good  men  (and  women).  If 
you're  a  good  Commodore  64  programmer 
with  a  lot  of  imagination  and  the  guts  to 
participate  in  a  great  adventure,  write  to 
Troy  through  Commodore  Magazine.  I'm 
sure  he'd  like  to  hear  from  you.  ra 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE     101 


Magic's  Majesty  in  Adventure  Games 

Continued  from  page  53 

The  abilities  that  are  added 

by  worn  magical  items  may 

or  may  not  be  useful  to  all 

characters. 

magical  that  you've  come  across  in  your 
travels  so  far  is  a  rod.  By  waving  the  rod 
at  the  fissure,  a  crystal  bridge  appears 
and  allows  you  to  cross  back  and  forth.  By 
using  the  rod  intelligently,  you've  solved  a 
problem  that  could  not  have  been  done  by 
ordinary  means. 

Worn  Magical  Items 

Especially  popular  in  role-playing 
games,  magical  items  that  are  worn  tend 
to  add  to  the  abilities  of  the  character  who 
is  wearing  them.  These  items  can  include: 
rings,  clothes,  armor,  hats,  shoes,  amulets 
and  necklaces.  These  items  usually  take 
effect  only  when  worn  and  show  no  magi- 
cal promise  when  not  worn.  An  indication 
of  some  kind  that  the  item  is  magical  is 
usually  given  by  the  game  when  the  item 
is  first  put  on  or  when  it  is  found.  In  either 
case,  these  objects  can  have  one  of  two  ef- 
fects: increase  the  natural  abilities  of  the 
character  wearing  the  item  or  give  the 
character  extra  abilities  that  he  didn't 
have  before. 

You  often  hear  in  role-playing  games 
that  a  character  possesses  a  +2  sword  or 
other  weapon  or  item.  Also,  each  charac- 
ter has  certain  values  associated  with  the 
abilities  that  he  has.  The  +  2  means  that 
when  a  weapon  or  item  is  used  a  certain 
ability  of  the  character  is  increased  by  two 
points.  Certain  magical  items  that  are 
worn  help  to  increase  some  abilities.  In 
particular,  certain  armor  or  an  amulet 
may  increase  the  defense  or  intelligence 
ability  respectively  of  the  character  by  a 
certain  number  of  points.  If  a  battle  oc- 
curs, then  that  character  may  be  more 
prepared  for  the  scuffle  because  his  de- 
fense rating  was  increased  by  four  points. 

In  the  same  way,  when  it  comes  to  using 
knowledge  to  find  out  something,  the 
truth  may  come  quicker  because  the  amu- 
let raised  the  intelligence  ability  by  five 
points. 

The  opposite  may  also  occur  in  both 
cases.  Worn  items  may  actually  decrease 
abilities  as  well  as  make  them  better.  The 
end  result  depends  on  the  particular  item. 
If  you  can  evaluate  the  object  before  using 
it,  do  it— because  a  detrimental  effect  is 
not  worth  the  gamble. 

Other  worn  items  tend  to  add  abilities 


to  a  character  that  he  never  had  before. 
These  abilities  are  more  often  special 
characteristics  that  are  magical  in  nature, 
rather  than  the  addition  to  standard  abili- 
ties like  defense  and  intelligence.  Depend- 
ing on  the  character,  the  magical  ability 
may  or  may  not  be  effective,  In  the  case  of 
a  gnome,  a  ring  that  makes  the  wearer 
into  a  gnome  is  useless.  But,  in  the  case  of 
a  deaf  human  being,  a  necklace  that  re- 
stores hearing  is  most  desirable.  As  you 
can  see,  the  abilities  that  are  added  by 
worn  magical  items  may  or  may  not  be 
useful  to  all  characters. 

From  "hocus  pocus"  to 

"abracadabra,"  magic  words 

or  phrases  have  been  the 

mainstay  with  magicians 

throughout  the  centuries. 

The  popular  King's  Quest  offers  a  good 
example  of  the  use  of  a  worn  magical  item 
that  adds  a  special  power  to  the  wearer, 
while  at  the  same  time  decreases  another 
ability.  The  person  who  rubs  the  magical 
ring  while  wearing  it  in  King's  Quest 
turns  invisible.  However,  that  same  per- 
son loses  points  in  the  game,  something 
that  indicates  that  maybe  there  is  another 
way  to  solve  the  current  puzzle  without 
turning  invisible.  Rubbing  the  ring  adds 
an  ability  (invisibility)  and  decreases  a 
rating  (score).  Such  a  double  effect  is  an 
indication  that  there  may  be  two  ways  to 
solve  a  puzzle  in  the  game  or  that  you 
have  to  weigh  the  decreases  and  increases 
in  the  game  to  determine  the  right  combi- 
nation of  each  that  will  give  a  winning  so- 
lution. 

Magic  Words 

From  'hocus  pocus"  to  "abracadabra," 
magic  words  or  phrases  have  been  the 
mainstay  of  magicians  throughout  the 
centuries.  Ancient  cultures  had  medicine 
men  who  recited  incantations  to  perform 
various  acts.  Modern  days  see  magicians 
trying  to  steer  away  from  the  trite  words 
and  language,  but  a  "presto"  seems  to  pop 
up  every  now  and  then  anyway.  What 
comes  out  of  this  is  that  words  sometimes 
have  more  power  than  magical  objects,  if 
the  faith  put  into  believing  that  the  words 
will  work  is  strong.  Anyone  who  recites  a 
spell  without  believing  its  potency  will 
cause  the  spell  to  fail  as  a  testament  to  his 
disbelief.  In  the  same  way,  confidence  in 
using  the  magical  words  offers  an  extra 
push.  Unfortunately,  in  most  adventure 


games,  this  belief  in  the  words  is  avoid- 
ed—just saying  the  magic  word  causes  its 
result  to  take  place. 

Some  games  are  laced  with 

magical  items  and  spells 

that  aren't  really  needed  to 

win  the  game. 

A  good  example  of  use  of  magical  words 
is  in  Arazok's  Tomb.  Saying  "rezrathron" 
conjures  spirits.  Saying  "tnahcne"  en- 
chants a  small  statue.  Saying  "light" 
makes  a  candle's  flame  come  to  life.  Un- 
fortunately, only  the  word  "light"  is  actu- 
ally of  real  use  in  the  game.  You  do  need 
to  light  a  candle.  In  the  cases  of  the  other 
two  words,  upon  reciting  them,  their  pro- 
fessed effect  doesn't  happen,  but  a  mes- 
sage is  given  to  the  player  about  some- 
thing else  in  the  game. 

This  example  shows  that  although  the 
ability  for  magic  is  there,  it  may  not  be 
necessary  to  complete  the  game.  This  is 
often  the  case.  Some  games  are  laced  with 
magical  items  and  spells  that  aren't  really 
needed  to  win  the  game.  They  are  simply 
there  to  entertain  or  confuse  the  player 
and  to  offer  more  of  a  challenge  in  the 
game.  Regardless  of  the  result,  the  way  to 
use  magical  words  is  to  simply  recite  them 
by  whatever  means  the  adventure  allows 
speech.  Then  and  only  then  will  the  power 
of  the  words  be  realized. 

In  Blade  ofBlackpook,  if  you  type  in 
the  word  "regnilo"  when  with  the  lizard  in 
the  lake,  all  of  your  objects  will  be  lost. 
The  message  here  is  that  you  shouldn't 
expect  every  magical  word  to  be  beneficial 
to  your  situation.  If  this  were  the  case, 
then  every  time  you  used  magic,  you 
would  expect  the  result  to  make  the  game 
easier  for  you.  Then  you  would  run 
around  casting  spells  and  using  magic, 
with  no  check  on  your  actions.  Magic  that 
doesn't  work  or  magic  that  works  against 
you  is  a  necessary  evil  in  the  world  of  ad- 
venture games  to  add  checks  and  balances 
to  situations  that  otherwise  would  be  too 
easy  or  too  hard.  Just  remember  to  use  the 
magical  words  once  to  see  what  they  do 
and  only  again  where  they  are  meant  to 
be  used. 

Miscellaneous  Magic 

All  of  the  things  I've  talked  about  so  far 
have  been  the  major  appearances  of  magic 
in  adventure  games.  Now  come  the  not-so- 
obvious  forms  of  magic.  Because  of  the 
various  ways  in  which  magic  is  presented 
in  a  game  (if  at  all)  by  the  author,  there 


102    AUGUST  1988 


Magic's  Majesty  in  Adventure  Games 

are  so  many  uses  of  it  that  it  would  be 
very  hard  to  describe  all  of  the  methods. 
Because  magic  deals  with  the  unreal, 
there  are  no  laws  that  dictate  whether  a 
certain  type  is  valid  or  not.  Nevertheless, 
here  are  some  of  the  other  ways  that  mag- 
ic is  presented  to  adventure  game  lovers. 

Sometimes,  it's  not  so  much  how  you 
use  a  magic  item,  but  just  the  fact  that 
you  are  holding  it  or  are  touching  it.  Just 
like  Indiana  Jones,  in  his  first  movie, 
when  he  lifted  the  idol  that  started  the 
huge  boulder  rolling,  merely  touching  a 
magical  object  causes  it  to  work.  Touching 
a  crystal  ball  in  some  games  will  cause  it 
to  light  up  and  begin  showing  the  future 
or  past.  The  only  way  to  find  out  whether 
to  touch  an  item  or  not  is  by  touching  it 
and  seeing  what  happens.  If  the  object 
harms  you,  return  to  a  previously  saved 
position  and  learn  from  your  mistakes. 
Otherwise,  note  the  result  of  your  touch- 
ing the  item.  In  the  case  of  a  touch-sensi- 
tive magical  item,  you  can't  prepare  for 
encountering  it— you  can  only  use  intelli- 
gence to  determine  what  to  do  after  you 
have  set  off  the  item.  That  answer  is 
game-dependent. 

If  you  carry  a  certain  item  into  a  room, 
it  becomes  active.  In  Adventure,  if  you  try 
to  catch  the  bird  while  holding  the  magi- 
cal rod  I  talked  about  earlier,  you  can't  do 
it.  This  is  because  the  bird  is  afraid  of  the 
rod.  However,  if  you  drop  the  rod  first,  you 
can  catch  the  bird.  Again,  you  can't  pre- 
pare for  the  effect  that  the  item  has.  A 
good  result  of  having  an  item  spring  to  life 
when  you  enter  a  specific  location  is  that 
you  find  out  that  it's  magical.  This  is  also 
true  of  touching  an  object.  Just  be  pre- 
pared to  run  in  case  the  object  that 
springs  to  life  as  a  weapon  and  turns  on 
you! 

Charms,  both  good  luck  and  bad,  are 
important  in  some  games  to  ward  off  evil 
(or  good).  The  only  way  to  tell  if  the  charm 
is  working  is  to  put  yourself  in  a  situation 
where  you  know  the  outcome  is  deter- 
mined by  luck.  If  your  charm  works,  for  ei- 
ther bad  or  good,  then  you  know  that  it 
was  a  good  thing  to  have  along  on  your 
travels. 

Wishbringer  is  a  perfect  example  of  a 
game  with  a  charm  in  it.  The  stone  named 
in  the  title  of  the  game  has  many  powers. 
When  you  wish  for  one  of  these  powers, 
you  must  be  holding  some  related  item.  If 
holding  a  horseshoe,  you  can  wish  for 
luck.  If  holding  an  umbrella,  you  can  wish 
for  rain.  This  game  is  an  example  of  mag- 
ic brought  about  by  possession  of  a  certain 
item.  Knowing  what  to  carry  makes  the 


magic  effective.  Again,  we  are  faced  with 
an  example  that  illustrates  the  most  im- 
portant rule  regarding  magic  in  adven- 
ture games:  knowing  what  the  item  does 
and  what  the  magic  is  intended  for  is  half 
the  battle  in  solving  the  magic-related 
puzzles  in  the  adventure. 

In  addition  to  specific  objects  that  are 
magical  in  a  game,  there  are  also  magical 
people,  creatures  and  rooms.  Any  adven- 
ture that  claims  to  be  in  a  world  dominat- 
ed by  or  supporting  of  magic  should  have 
at  least  one  example  from  one  of  these 
magical  forms,  if  not  all.  Most  adventures 
have  some  kind  of  evil  or  good  wizard  that 
you  have  to  get  past  at  some  point  in  the 
game.  If  you  think  about  it,  if  you  perform 
magic  in  an  adventure,  you  are  a  magical 
person  too.  A  good  adventure  will  present 
you  with  alternate  magical  characters 
with  whom  you  can  interact. 

Creatures  and  rooms  are  a  different  sto- 
ry. Although  you  and  other  characters  in 
the  game  may  use  magic,  there  may  not 
be  members  of  the  animal  world  that  are 
affected  by  magic.  Some  game  authors  de- 
sire to  leave  magic  only  to  human  beings 
and  leave  the  animal  kingdom  alone.  This 
is  a  valid  direction  to  take,  making  the 
game  simpler  to  write.  More  likely  is  the 
inclusion  of  some  kind  of  magical  mascot 
(usually  a  bird  for  wizards)  or  enemy  that 
is  a  creature,  either  legendary  (and  thus 
not  real)  or  normal  (with  magical  quali- 
ties). These  creatures  may  offer  extra  sub- 
stance to  the  game  and  some  unusual  puz- 
zles that  involve  the  removal  of  such  en- 
chanted creatures. 

Magic  rooms  are  usually  seen  in  at 
least  one  point  in  the  game.  If  the  adven- 
ture is  a  graphic  one,  you  can  usually  tell 
from  the  picture  whether  you  have  en- 
tered a  special  room.  In  text  adventures, 
you  have  to  rely  on  a  description.  Most  of 
the  time,  magic  locations  are  protected 
from  normal  entry  by  magic  barriers  or 
are  accessed  through  hidden  or  magically 
created  (portals,  etc.)  entrances.  Magic  lo- 
cations usually  pop  up  toward  the  end  of 
the  game.  Sometimes,  reaching  a  magical 
room  is  the  goal  of  a  game.  In  either  case, 
expect  a  lot  of  strange  things  to  happen  in 
these  places,  for  if  your  surroundings  are 
enchanted,  then  anything  goes. 

Magical  vehicles  are  not  used  as  much 
in  adventure  games  as  I'd  wish,  but  never- 
theless are  very  interesting.  They  usually 
require  some  sort  of  special  knowledge  to 
work  and  may  transport  you  to  other 
times  or  just  to  other  locations  in  an  in- 
stant. Typical  of  time  travel  is  the  time 
machine  in  Zork  III.  You  find  it  in  the 
technology  museum  and  must  push  it  to 


the  jewel  room  in  the  museum.  After  ex- 
amining the  time  machine,  you  notice  a 
dial  with  numbers  on  it.  Turning  the  dial 
and  pushing  a  button  will  transport  you  to 
the  time  on  the  dial.  By  setting  the  dial  to 
776,  you  travel  backwards  in  time  to  the 
past  and  find  a  treasure  in  the  jewel  room 
in  the  year  776.  In  this  example,  the  mag- 
ic vehicle  was  easily  controlled  once  you 
knew  how.  This  is  the  key  to  working  any 
magical  vehicle.  Often,  you  have  to  look 
hard  for  the  directions  to  use  the  vehicle, 
but  after  you  find  them  the  rest  goes 
smoothly. 

Another  example  of  a  magical  vehicle 
requires  no  knowledge  of  operation  at  all. 
In  Dragon's  Lair,  one  of  the  sequences  re- 
quires you  to  ride  a  horse  that  has  come 
alive  and  gone  crazy  when  you  sit  on  it.  As 
well  as  a  magical  vehicle,  this  example 
also  illustrates  something  magical  that  is 
activated  with  touch.  As  you  can  see, 
some  magic  transcends  categories  and  re- 
veals an  entirely  new  form  of  magic  that 
combines  aspects  of  different  effects. 

Finally,  magical  items  are  sometimes 
the  goal  of  an  adventure.  For  instance, 
most  role-playing  games  are  presented  as 
quests  for  some  object  that  is  the  focus  of 
the  travels  and  the  end  of  the  adventure. 
Role-playing  games  lend  themselves  well 
to  such  a  journey  because  of  the  differ- 
ences between  characters  and  the  camara- 
derie that  results.  Questran  and  Faery 
Tale  Adventure  are  both  games  that  in- 
volve a  magical  item  in  their  goal.  In 
Questran,  you  must  find  the  renegade  sor- 
cerer, Mantor,  and  steal  back  the  book  of 
evil  magic,  rendering  him  powerless.  In 
Faery  Tale  Adventure,  you  must  find  the 
special  weapon  that  will  defeat  the  evil 
necromancer.  In  both  cases,  the  quest  is 
long  and  full  of  mini-quests  along  the  way 
that  lead  to  the  discovery  of  the  magical 
item. 

Magic  was  brought  alive  by  the  magi- 
cians of  the  19th  and  20th  centuries  who 
performed  their  acts  for  audiences  of  all 
types.  With  the  advent  of  computers  and 
inspiration  of  games  like  Dungeons  and 
Dragons  that  are  played  entirely  on  paper, 
magic  forged  its  way  into  new  frontiers  by 
becoming  condensed  on  floppy  disks.  The 
next  step  is  to  make  that  magic  more  real- 
istic by  using  the  technological  advances 
in  better  microprocessors,  like  the  68000, 
and  CDI  technology.  Just  as  real-life  ef- 
fects get  bigger,  better  and  more  mysti- 
cal— like  the  disappearance  of  the  Statue 
of  Liberty  by  David  Copperfield— the  com- 
puter world  magic  must  and  will  become 
just  as  amazing.  Until  then,  boot  up  a  disk 
and  pretend  you're  Merlin.  Q 


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HOW  TO  ENTER  PROGRAMS 

The  programs  which  appeal'  in  this 
magazine  have  been  run.  tested  and 
checked  for  bugs  and  errors.  After  a  pro- 
gram is  tested,  it  is  printed  on  a  letter 
quality  printer  with  some  formatting 
changes.  This  listing  is  thai}  photo- 
graphed directly  and  printed  in  the  maga- 
zine. Using  this  method  ensures  the  most 
error-free  program  listings  possible. 

Whenever  you  see  a  word  inside  brack- 
ets, such  as  |  DOWN |,  the  word  represents 
a  keystroke  or  series  of  keystrokes  on  the 
keyboard.  The  word  [DOWN]  would  be 
entered  by  pressing  the  cursor-down  key. 
If  multiple  keystrokes  are  required,  the 
number  will  directly  follow  the  word.  For 
example,  |  DOWN4 1  would  mean  to  press 
the  cursor-down  key  four  times.  If  there 
are  multiple  words  within  one  set  of 
brackets,  enter  the  keystrokes  directly 
after  one  another.  For  example,  I  DOWN. 
RIGHT2I  would  mean  to  press  the  cursor- 
down  key  once  and  then  the  cursor-right 
key  twice.  Note:  Do  not  enter  the  commas. 

In  addition  to  these  graphic  symbols, 
the  keyboard  graphics  are  all  represented 
by  a  word  and  a  letter.  The  word  is  either 
SHFr  or  CMD  and  represents  the  SHIFT 
key  or  the  Commodore  key.  The  letter  is 
one  of  the  letters  on  the  keyboard.  The 
combination  ISHFT  E]  would  be  entered 
by  holding  down  the  SHIFT  key  and 
pressing  the  K.  A  number  following  the 
letter  tells  you  how  many  times  to  type 
the  letter.  For  example.  [SHFT  A4.CMD 
B3]  would  mean  to  hold  the  SI  IIJ-'I"  key 
and  press  the  A  four  times,  then  hold 
down  the  Commodore  key  and  piv.-s  tht- 
B  three  times, 

The  following  chart  tells  you  the  keys  to 
press  for  any  word  or  words  inside  of 


brackets.  Refer  to  this  chart  whenever  you 
aren't  sure  what  keys  to  press.  The  little 
graphic  next  to  the  keystrokes  shows  you 
what  you  will  see  on  the  screen. 

SYNTAX  ERROR 

This  is  by  far  the  most  common  error 
encountered  while  entering  a  program. 
Usually  (sony  folks)  this  means  that  you 
have  tyix'd  something  incorrectly  on  the 
line  the  syntax  error  refers  to.  If  you  get 
the  message  "'Syntax  Error  Break  In 
Line  270",  tvpe  LIST  270  and  press 
RETURN,  this  will  list  line  270  to  the 
screen.  Look  for  any  non-obvious  mis- 
takes iike  a  zero  in  place  of  an  0  or  vice- 
versa.  Check  for  semicolons  and  colons  re- 
versed and  extra  or  missing  parenthesis. 
All  of  these  things  will  cause  a  syntax 
error. 

There  is  only  one  time  a  syntax  error- 
will  tell  you  the  "wrong"  line  to  look  at.  If 
the  line  the  syntax  error  refers  to  has  a 
function  call  (i.e.,  FN  A(3)),  the  syntax 
error  may  be  in  the  line  that  defines  the 
function,  rather  than  the  line  named  in 
the  error  message.  Look  for  a  line  near 
the  beginning  of  the  program  (usually) 
that  has  DEK  FN  A(X)  in  it  with  an  equa- 
tion following  it.  Look  for  a  typo  in  the 
equation  part  of  this  definition. 

ILLEGAL  QUANTITY  ERROR 

This  is  another  common  error  message. 
This  can  also  be  caused  by  a  typing  error, 
but  it  is  a  little  harder  to  find.  Once  again, 
list  the  line  number  that  the  emir  mes- 
sage refers  to.  There  is  probably  a  poke 
statement  on  this  line.  If  there  is.  then  the 
error  is  referring  to  what  is  trying  to  be 
poked.  A  number  must  be  in  the  range  of 


jjj"|HOMET  -UNSHIFTED  CLR/  HOME 
n  "|CLEAB|- -SHIFTED  CLB/HOME 


[3    !DOWN|-  -CURSOR  DOWN 

Q  "[UPI" -CURSOR  UP 
H  ■•[RIGHTT-  CURSOR  RIGHT 

[1  "1LEFT]- -CURSOR  LEFT 
FT    |RVSr  -  CONTROL  9 

■  "IRVOFFT  -CONTROL  0 
ffl  '■[BLACKI"  -CONTROL  1 

[1     WHITEI'- CONTROL  2 
H '[RED|    -CONTROLS 

JT]  "ICYANI"- CONTROL  4 


••(PURPLEI    -CONTROL  5 
I    IGREENI" -CONTROL  6 


a, 

b: 


S     IBLUEI    -CONTROL? 

R     YELLOW]'  -CONTROL 8 
Q    jQRANGEl    -COMMODORE  1 

P  "[BROWN|"  =  COMMODORE  2 
0  "|L  REDI"  -  COMMODORE  3 

n    iGRAYlf  -COMMODORE  4 
0  'ICRAY2]  '  -COMMODORE  b 

Ij[L  GREENt  -COMMODORE  6 
Q-|L  BLUE|-=  COMMODORE  7 

H  •■!GRAY3P  =  COMMODORE  S 

GRAPHIC  SYMBOLS  WILL  BE  REPRESENTED  AS  EITHER  THE  LETTERS 
SHFT  (SHIFT)  AND  A  KEY  {"[SHFT  Q.SHFT  J. SHFT  D.SHFT  S]")  OR  THE 
LETTERS  CMDR  (COMMODORE)  AND  A  KEY  ("[CMDR  Q.CMDR 
G.COMDR  Y.CMDR  HJ")  IF  A  SYMBOL  IS  REPEATED.  THE  NUMBER  OF 
REPIT1TIONS  WILL  BE  DIRECTLY  AFTER  THE  KEY  AND  BEFORE  THE 
COMMA  ("1SPACE3.SHFT  S4.CMDR  M21") 


j"|FI|"-F1 

F2V-F2 
j"lF31"-F3 

IF4P-F4 
[|    |r5r-F5 

y  "iF6f  =F6 

jj'|F7]'  -F7 
[!'[F3]"=F3 

jj]    ;POUND|"  =  ENGLISH 
POUND 
Jjjj    ISHFT"]'  -PI  SYMBOL 

|t]  ■■[?•  =  UP  ARROW 


zero  to  255  to  be  poke-able.  For  example, 
the  statement  POKE  1024,260  would  pro- 
duce an  illegal  quantity  error  because  260 
is  greater  than  255. 

Most  often,  the  %'alue  being  poked  is  a 
variable  i  A.X..J.  This  error  is  telling  you 
that  this  variable  is  out  of  range.  If  the 
variable  is  being  read  from  data  state- 
ments, then  the  problem  is  somewhere  in 
the  data  statements.  Check  the  data 
statements  for  missing  commas  or  other 
typos. 

If  the  variable  is  not  coming  from  data 
statements,  then  the  problem  will  be  a  lit- 
tle harder  to  find.  Check  each  line  that 
contains  the  variable  for  typing  mistakes. 

OUT  OF  DATA  ERROR 

This  error  message  is  always  related  to 
the  data  statements  in  a  program.  If  this 
error  occurs,  it  means  that  the  program 
has  run  out  of  data  items  before  it  was 
supposed  to.  It  is  usually  caused  by  a  prob- 
lem or  typo  in  the  data  statements.  Check 
first  to  see  if  you  have  left  out  a  whole  line 
of  data.  Next,  check  for  missing  commas 
between  numbers.  Reading  data  from  a 
page  of  a  magazine  can  be  a  strain  on  the 
brain,  so  use  a  ruler  or  a  piece  of  paper  or 
anything  else  to  help  you  keep  track  of 
where  you  are  as  you  enter  the  data. 

OTHER  PROBLEMS 

It  is  important  to  remember  that  the  64 
and  the  PET/CBM  computers  will  only  ac- 
cept a  line  up  to  80  characters  long.  The 
VIC  20  will  accept  a  line  up  to  88  charac- 
ters long.  Sometimes  you  will  find  a  line 
in  a  program  that  runs  over  this  number 
of  characters.  This  is  not  a  mistake  in  the 
listing.  Sometimes  programmers  get  so 
carried  away  crunching  programs  that 
they  use  abbreviated  commands  to  get 
more  than  80  (or  88)  characters  on  one 
line.  You  can  enter  these  lines  by  abbrevi- 
ating the  commands  when  you  enter  the 
line.  The  abbreviations  for  BASIC  com- 
mands are  on  pages  133-134  of  the  VIC  20 
user  guide  and  130-131  of  the  Commodore 
64  user's  guide. 

If  you  type  a  line  that  is  longer  than  80 
(or  88)  characters,  the  computer  will  act  as 
if  everything  is  ok,  until  you  press  RE- 
TURN. Then,  a  syntax  error  will  be  dis- 
played (without  a  line  number).  Many 
people  write  that  the  computer  gives  them 
a  syntax  error  when  they  type  the  line,  or 
that  the  computer  refuses  to  accept  a  line. 
Both  of  these  problems  are  results  of  typ- 
ing a  line  of  more  than  80  (or  88)  charac- 
ters. 


108    AUGUST  1988 


How  to  Enter  Programs 

THE  PROGRAM  WONT  RUN!! 

This  is  the  hardest  of  problems  to  re- 
solve; no  eiTor  message  is  displayed,  but 
the  program  just  doesn't  run.  This  can  be 
caused  by  many  small  mistakes  typing  a 
program  in.  First  check  that  the  program 
was  written  for  the  computer  you  are  us- 
ing. Check  to  see  if  you  have  left,  out  any 
lines  of  the  program.  Check  each  tine  of 
the  program  for  typos  or  missing  parts.  Fi- 
nally, press  the  RUN/STOP  key  while  the 
program  is  "running".  Write  down  the  line 
the  program  broke  at  and  try  to  follow  the 
program  backwards  from  this  point,  look- 
ing for  problems. 

IF  ALL  ELSE  FAILS 

You've  come  to  the  end  of  your  rope. 


You  can't  get  the  program  to  run  and  you 
can't  find  any  errors  in  your  typing.  What 
do  you  do?  As  always,  we  suggest  that  you 
j  try  a  local  user  group  for  help.  In  a  group 
of  even  just  a  dozen  members,  someone  is 
bound  to  have  typed  in  the  same  program. 
The  user  group  may  also  have  the  pro- 
gram on  a  library  disk  and  be  willing  to 
make  a  copy  for  you. 

If  you  do  get  a  working  copy,  be  sure  to 
compare  it  to  your  own  version  so  that  you 
can  leum  from  your  errors  and  increase 
you  understanding  of  programming. 

If  you  live  in  the  country,  don't  have  a 
local  user  group,  or  you  simply  can't  get 
any  help,  write  to  us.  If  you  do  write  to  us, 
include  the  following  information  about 
the  program  you  are  having  problems 
with: 


The  name  of  the  program 
The  issue  of  the  magazine  it  was  in 
The  computer  you  are  using 
Any  error  messages  and  the  line 

numbers 
Anything  displayed  on  the  screen 
A  printout  of  your  listing  (if 

possible) 
All  of  this  information  is  helpful  in  an- 
swering your  questions  about  why  a  pro- 
gram doesn't  work.  A  letter  that  simply 
states  "I  get  an  error  in  line  250  whenever 
I  run  the  program"  doesn't  give  us  much 
to  go  on.  Send  your  questions  to: 
Commodore  Magazine 

1200  Wilson  Drive 

West  Chester,  PA  19380 

ATTN:  Program  Problem 

Have  fun  with  the  programs!  Q| 


HOW  TO  USE  THE  MAGAZINE  ENTRY  PROGRAMS 


The  Magazine  Entiy  Programs  on  the 
next  pages  are  two  BASIC  machine 
language  programs  that  will  assist  you  in 
entering  the  programs  in  this  magazine 
correctly.  There  are  versions  for  both  the 
Commodore  64  and  the  Commodore  128. 
Once  the  program  is  in  place,  it  works  its 
magic  without  you  having  to  do  anything 
else.  The  program  will  not  let  you  enter  a 
line  if  there  is  a  typing  mistake  on  it,  and 
better  yet,  it  identifies  the  kind  of  error  for 

you. 

Getting  Started 

T^pe  in  the  Magazine  Entry  Program 
carefully  and  save  it  as  you  go  along  (just 
in  case).  Once  the  whole  program  is  typed 
in,  save  it  again  on  tape  or  disk.  Now 
RUN  the  program.  The  word  POKING 
will  appear  on  the  top  of  the  screen  with  a 
number.  The  number  will  increment  from 
49152  up  to  49900  (4864-5545  on  the  128) 
and  just  lets  you  know  that  the  program  is 
running.  If  everything  is  ok,  the  program 
will  finish  running  and  say  DONE.  Then 
type  NEW.  If  there  is  a  problem  with  the 
data  statements,  the  program  will  tell  you 
where  to  find  the  problem.  Otherwise  the 
program  will  say  "mistake  in  data  state- 
ments." Check  to  see  if  commas  are  miss- 
ing, or  if  you  have  used  periods  instead  of 
commas.  Also  check  the  individual  data 
items. 

Once  the  program  has  run,  it  is  in 
memory  ready  to  go.  To  activate  the  pro- 
gram type  SYS49152  (SYS4864  on  the 
128),  and  press  RETURN.  You  are  now 
ready  to  enter  the  programs  from  the 
magazine.  To  disable  the  Entry  Program, 
just  type  KILL  [RETURN]  on  the  64  or 


SYS4867  on  the  128. 

The  checksums  for  each  line  are  the 
same  for  both  the  64  and  128.  so  you  can 
enter  your  64  programs  on  the  128  if  you'd 

like. 

Typing;  the  Programs 

All  the  BASIC  program  listings  in  this 
magazine  that  are  for  the  64  or  1 28  have 
an  apostrophe  followed  by  four  letters  at 
the  end  of  the  line  (e.g.,  "ACDFl.  If  you 
plan  to  use  the  Magazine  Entry  Program 
to  enter  your  programs,  the  apostrophe 
and  letters  should  be  entered  along  with 
the  rest  of  the  line.  This  is  a  checksum 
that  the  Magazine  Entry  Program  uses. 

Enter  the  line  and  the  letters  at  t he  end 
and  then  press  RETURN,  just  as  you  nor- 
mally would. 

If  the  line  is  entered  correctly,  a  bell  is 
sounded  and  the  line  is  entered  into  the 
computer's  memory'  (without  the  charac- 
ters at  the  end). 

If  a  mistake  was  made  while  entering 
the  line,  a  noise  is  sounded  and  an  error 
message  is  displayed.  Read  the  error  mes- 
sage, then  press  any  key  to  erase  the  mes- 
sage and  correct  the  line. 

IMPORTANT 

If  the  Magazine  Entry  Program  sees  a 
mistake  on  a  line,  it  does  not  enter  that 
line  into  memory.  This  makes  it  impossi- 
ble to  enter  a  line  incorrectly. 

Error  Messages  and 
What  They  Mean 

There  are  five  error  messages  that  the 
Magazine  Entry  Program  uses.  Here  they 
are,  along  with  what  they  mean  and  how 


to  fix  them. 

NO  ( 1HECKSUM:  This  means  that  you 
forgot  to  enter  the  apostrophe  and  the  four 
letters  at  the  end  of  the  line.  Move  the 
cursor  to  the  end  of  the  line  you  just  typed 
and  enter  the  checksum. 

QUOTE:  This  means  that  you  forgot  (or 
added.'  a  quote  mark  somewhere  in  the 
line.  Check  the  line  in  the  magazine  and 
correct  the  quote. 

KEYWOR1 ):  This  means  that  you  have 
either  forgotten  a  command  or  spelled  one 
of  the  BASIC  keywords  (GOTO, 
PRINT . .  I  incorrectly.  Check  the  line  in 
the  magazine  again  and  check  your  spell- 
!  ing. 

#  OF  CHARACTERS:  This  means 
that  you  have  either  entered  extra  charac- 
ters or  missed  some  characters.  Check  the 
line  in  the  magazine  again.  This  error 
message  will  also  occur  if  you  misspell  a 
BASIC  command,  but  create  another 
keyword  in  doing  so.  For  example,  if  you 
misspell  PRINT  as  PRONT,  the  64  sees 
the  letter  P  and  R,  the  BASIC  keyword 
ON  and  then  the  letter  T.  Because  it  sees 
the  keyword  ON,  it  thinks  you've  got  too 
many  characters,  instead  of  a  simple  mis- 
spelling. Check  spelling  of  BASIC  com- 
mands if  you  can't  find  anything  else 
wrong. 

UNIDENTIFIED:  This  means  that  you 
have  either  made  a  simple  spelling  error, 
you  typed  the  wrong  line  number,  or  you 
typed  the  checksum  incorrectly.  Spelling 
errors  could  be  the  wrong  number  of 
spaces  inside  quotes,  a  variable  spelled 
wrong,  or  a  word  misspelled.  Check  the 
line  in  the  magazine  again  and  correct  the 
mistake  m 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE     109 


Magazine  Entry  Program — 64 


The  Magazine  Eniry  Programs  arc  available™  disk.along  with  (Hher  programsin  ihismagazine, 
for  S9.95,  To  order,  contact  Loadstar  at  !  -800-83 1  -2694. 


10 
20 

30 
40 
50 

60 
70 
80 
90 


100 


PRINT" [CLEAR] POKING  -"; 
P=49152  :REM  SC000   (END  AT 
49900/SC2EC) 

READ  AS:IF  AS="END"THEN  110 
L=ASC(MID$(A$,2,1) ) 
H=ASC(MIDS(AS,1,1) ) 
L=L-48:IF  L>9  THEN  L=L-7 
H=H-48:IF  H>9  THEN  H=H-7 
PRINT" [HOME,RIGHT12) "P; 

IF  H>15  OR  L>15  THEN  PRINT 
:PRINT"DATA  ERROR  IN  LINE"; 
1000+ I NT ( (P-491S2)/8) :STOP 

B=H*16+L:POKE  P,B: T=T+B : P=P+1 

:GOTO  30 


110  IF  TO86200  THEN  PRINT 
:PRINT"MISTAKE  IN  DATA 

DATA  STATEMENTS" : END 


120 

1000 

1001 

1002 

1003 

1004 

1005 

1006 

1007 

1008 

1009 

1010 

1011 

1012 

1013 

1014 

1015 

1016 

1017 

1018 

1019 

1020 

1021 

1022 

1023 

1024 

1025 

1026 

1027 

1028 

1029 

1030 

1031 


PRINT 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 


"DONE": 
4C,1F, 
00,00, 
CI, 27, 
C1,EA, 
05, BD, 
F8,60, 
D9,04, 
A0,05, 
88,10, 
4C,EF, 
7B,4C, 
A5,7A, 
C9,01, 
00,02, 
00, 4C, 
C9,3A, 
C8,B1, 
D0,F7, 
7A,F0, 
03, C0, 
69,00, 
18, 6D, 
03, EE, 
CE,C1, 
C0,90, 
C0,60, 
FB,B9, 
A3, 12, 
06,20, 
BC,C2, 
18, B9, 
10, F7, 


END 
C0,  00 
00,00 

C1,2F 
EA,EA 
19, C0 
60, A0 
C1,D0 
B9,A2 
F7,A9 
C0,E6 
79,00 
C9,FF 
D0,E7 
20,74 
A9,C1 
10,02 
7A,C9 
B1,7A 
37, C9 
8D,03 
8D,04 
05, C0 
06, C0 
18,  6D 
03, EE 
0A,A8 
10, C0 
20, D2 
D2,FF 
20, E4 
08, CI 
6  8,68 


,00,00 
,00,0D 

,C1,3F 
,4C,54 
,95,73 

,03,B9 
,F5,88 

,E3,99 
,00,8D 
,7A,D0 
,A5,9D 
,D0,ED 
,20, 2B 
,C0,90 
,C9,30 
,38,60 
,20, D0 
,60,18 
,22, F0 
,C0,AD 
,C0,4C 
,8D,05 
,EE,09 
,08, C0 
,07, C0 
,B9,0F 
, 8  5 , FC 
,FF,B1 
,C8,D0 
,FF,F0 
,20, D2 
,A9,00 


■>  CHECK 


,00,00 
,00,21 

,C1,4C 

,C0,A2 
,CA,10 
,00,02 
,10, F5 
,73,00 
,18,D4 
,02,E6 
,F0,F3 
,A5,7B 
,C0,AD 
,DC,A0 
,30,06 
,18,60 
,03, C8 
,C8,B1 
,F5,6D 
,04, C0 
,8E,C0 
,C0,90 
,C0,4C 
,8D,08 
,EE,0A 
,C0,85 
,A0,00 
,FB,F0 
,F6,20 
,FB,A0 
,FF,8  8 
,8D,00 


1032 

DATA 

1033 

DATA 

1034 

DATA 

1035 

DATA 

1036 

DATA 

1037 

DATA 

1038 

DATA 

1039 

DATA 

1040 

DATA 

1041 

DATA 

1042 

DATA 

1043 

DATA 

1044 

DATA 

1045 

DATA 

1046 

DATA 

1047 

DATA 

1048 

DATA 

1049 

DATA 

1050 

DATA 

1051 

DATA 

1052 

DATA 

1053 

DATA 

1054 

DATA 

1055 

DATA 

1056 

DATA 

1057 

DATA 

1058 

DATA 

1059 

DATA 

1060 

DATA 

1061 

DATA 

1062 

DATA 

1063 

DATA 

1064 

DATA 

1065 

DATA 

1066 

DATA 

1067 

DATA 

1068 

DATA 

1069 

DATA 

1070 

DATA 

1071 

DATA 

1072 

DATA 

1073 

DATA 

1074 

DATA 

1075 

DATA 

1076 

DATA 

1077 

DATA 

1078 

DATA 

1079 

DATA 

1080 

DATA 

1081 

DATA 

1082 

DATA 

1083 

DATA 

1084 

DATA 

1085 

DATA 

1086 

DATA 

1087 

DATA 

1088 

DATA 

1089 

DATA 

1090 

DATA 

1091 

DATA 

1092 

DATA 

1093 

DATA 

02,4C,74,A4,4B,4  9,4C,4C 
91, 91, 0D, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20 

20,20,20,20,20,20,20,20 
20,20,20,20,20,20,20,91 
0D,51,55,4F,54,45,00,4B 
45, 59, 57, 4F, 52, 44, 00, 23 
20, 4F, 46, 20, 43, 48, 41, 52 
41,43,54,45,52,53,00,55 
4E,49,44,45,4E,54,49,46 
49,45,44,00,4E,4F,20,43 
48, 45, 43, 4B, 53, 55, 4D, 00 
C8,B1,7A,D0,FB,84,FD,C0 
09, 10, 03, 4C, 84, CI, 88, 88 
8  8,88,88,B1,7A,C9,27,D0 
13,A9,00,91,7A,C8,A2,00 
B1,7A,9D, 3C,03,C8,E8,E0 
04,D0,F5,60,A9,04,4C,CA 
C0,A0,00,B9,00,02,99,40 
03,F0,F0,C8,D0,F5,A0,00 
B9,40,03,F0,E6,99,00,02 
C8,D0,F5,20,96,C1,4C,12 
C2,A0,09,A9,00,99,03,C0 

8D,3C,03,88,10,F7,A9,80 
85, 02, A0, 00, 20, 58, CI, 20 
89,C1,20,ED,C1,E6,7A,E6 
7B,20,7C,A5,A0,0  0,20,8  0 
C0,F0,D0,24,02,F0,06,4C 
A8,C0,4C,CE,C1,C9,2  2,D0 
06,2  0,8D,C0,4C,CE,C1,20 
BA,C0,4C,CE,C1,A0,00,B9 
00,02,20,74,C0,C8,90,0A 
18,6D,07,C0,8D,07,C0,4C 
EF,C1,88,A2,0  0,B9,0  0,02 
9D,00,02,F0,04,E8,C8,D0 
F4, 60, 18, AD, 09, C0, 69, 41 
8D,09,C0,38,AD,0A,C0,E9 
19,90,06,8D,0A,C0,4C,1C 
C2, AD,0A,C0,69,41,8D,0A 
C0,AD,03,C0,6D,05,C0,48 
AD,04,C0,6D,06,C0,8D,0C 
C0,68,6D,08,C0,8D,0B,C0 
AD,0C,C0,6D,0  7,C0,8D,0C 
C0 , 3  8 , E9 , 1 9 , 9  0 , 0  6 , 8D , 0C 
C0,4C,52,C2,AD,0C,C0,69 
41,8D,0C,C0,AD,0B,C0,E9 
19,90,06,8D,0B,C0,4C,67 
C2,AD,0B,C0,6  9,41,8D,0B 
C0,A0,01,AD,09,C0,CD,3C 
0  3,D0,20,C8,AD,0A,C0,CD 
3D,03,D0,17,C8,AD,0B,C0 
CD,3E,03,D0,0E,AD,0C,C0 
CD,3F,03,D0,06,20,CC,C2 

4C,4B,C0,98,4  8,6  8,4C,CA 
C0,A9,20,8D,00,D4,8D,01 
D4,A9,09,8D,05,D4,A9,0F 
8D,18,D4,60,20,A9,C2,A9 
81,20,DF,C2,A9,80,20,DF 

C2,4C,D9,C2,20,A9,C2,A9 
11,2G,DF,C2,A9,10,20,DF 

C2,A9,00,8D,04,D4,60,8D 
04,D4,A2,70,A0,0  0,8  8,D0 
FD,CA,D0,FA,60,END     END 


110    AUGUST  1988 


Magazine  Entry  Program — 128 

5  TRAP  200 

10  PRINT" [CLEAR) POKING 

20  P=4864  :REM  $1300   (END  AT 

5545/S15A9) 
30  READ  AS: IF  A$="END"THEN  110 
80  PRINT" [HOME, RIGHT12] "P; 
100  B=DEC(AS) :POKE  P, B : T=T+B : P=P+1 

:GOTO  30 
110  IF  T059382  THEN  PRINT 

:PRINT"MISTAKE  IN  DATA  -->  CHECK 

DATA  STATEMENTS" : END 
120  PRINT"DONE":END 
200  PRINT:PRINT"DATA  ERROR  IN  LINE"; 

1000+INT( (P-4864)/8) :END 

1000  DATA  4C,1E,13,4C,3A,13,00,00 

1001  DATA  8E, 00, F7, 00, 42, 41, 51, 57 

1002  DATA  0D,00,0D,43,08,14,0E,14 

1003  DATA  16,14, 26, 14, 33, 14, A9, 00 

1004  DATA  8D,00,FF,AD,04,03,8D, 12 

1005  DATA  13, AD, 05, 03, 8D, 13, 13, A2 

1006  DATA  4A,A0,13,8E,04,03,8C,05 

1007  DATA  03, 60, AD, 12, 13, 8D, 04, 03 

1008  DATA  AD, 13, 13, SD, 05, 03, 60, 6C 

1009  DATA  12,13,A5,7F,D0,F9,AD,00 

1010  DATA  02,20,5B,13,90,F1,A0,00 

1011  DATA  4C,6F,14,C9,30,30,06,C9 

1012  DATA  3A, 10, 02, 38, 60, 18, 60, C8 

1013  DATA  Bl,3D,C9,20,D0,03,C8,D0 

1014  DATA  F7,B1,3D,60,18,C8,B1,3D 

1015  DATA  F0,35,C9,22,F0,F5,6D,06 

1016  DATA  13,8D,06,13,AD,07,13,69 

1017  DATA  00, 8D, 07, 13, 4C, 75, 13, 18 

1018  DATA  6D, 08, 13, 8D, 08, 13, 90, 03 

1019  DATA  EE,09,13,EE,0C,13,60,18 

1020  DATA  6D, 0B, 13, 8D, 06,13,90,03 

1021  DATA  EE,0A,13,EE,0D,13,60,0A 

1022  DATA  A8,B9,14,13,85,FB,B9,15 

1023  DATA  13,85,FC,A0,00,8C,00,FF 

1024  DATA  A9,12,20,D2,FF,B1,FB,FB 

1025  DATA  06,20,D2,FF,C8,D0,F6,20 

1026  DATA  79,15,20,A3,15,20,E4,FF 

1027  DATA  F0,FB,A0,1B,B9,EF,13,20 

1028  DATA  D2,FF,88,10,F7,68,68,A9 

1029  DATA  00,8D,00,02,4C,B7,4D,91 

1030  DATA  91,00,20,20,20,20,20,20 

1031  DATA  20,20,20,20,20,20,20,20 

1032  DATA  20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 91, 0D 

1033  DATA  51, 55, 4F, 54, 45, 00, 4B, 45 

1034  DATA  59, 57, 4F, 52, 44, 00, 23, 20 

1035  DATA  4F, 46, 20, 43, 48, 41, 52, 41 


1036 
1037 
1038 
1039 
1040 
1041 
1042 
1043 
1044 
1045 
1046 
1047 
1048 
1049 
1050 
1051 
1052 
1053 
1054 
1055 
1056 
1057 
1058 

1059 
1060 
1061 
1062 
1063 
1064 
1065 
1066 
1067 
1068 
1069 
1070 
1071 
1072 
1073 
1074 
1075 
1076 
1077 
1078 
1079 
1080 
1081 
1082 
1083 
1084 
1085 


DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 

DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 
DATA 


43,54, 45, 52, 53, 00, 55, 4E 

49, 44, 45, 4E, 54, 49, 46, 49 
45,44,00,4E,4F,20,43,48 
45,43,4B,53,55,4D,00,C8 
B1,3D,D0,FB,98,30,04,C9 
06, 30, IE, 88, 88, 88, 88, 88 
Bl,3D,C9,27,D0,13,A9,00 
91,3D,C8,A2,00,B1,3D,9D 
00,0B,C8,E8,E0,04,D0,F5 
60,4C,5C,15,4C,C5,14,A0 
09, A9, 00, 9 9, 0  6,1 3, 8D, 00 
0B,88,10,F7,A9,80,8  5,FD 
A0,00,20,3F,14,20,AE,14 
20,0D,4  3,84,FA,A0,FF,2  0 
67,13,F0,D8,24,FD,F0,06 
20,8F,13,4C,8F,14,C9,22 
D0,06,20,74,13,4C,8F,14 
20,9F,13,4C,8F,14,A0,00 

B9,00,02,20,5B,13,C8,90 
0A,18,6D,0A,13,8D,0A,13 

4C,B0,14,88,60,18,AD,0C 

13,69,41,8D,0C,13,38,AD 
0D,13,E9,19,90,06,3D,0D 
13,4C,CF,14,AD,0D,13,69 
41,8D,0D,13,AD,06,13,6D 
08, 13, 48, AD, 07, 13, 6D, 09 
13,8D,0F,13,68,6D,0B,13 
8D,0E,13,AD,0F,13,6D,0A 
13,8D,0F,13,38,E9,19,90 
06,8D,0F,13,4C,05,15,AD 
0F,13,69,41,8D,0F,13,AD 
0E,13,E9,19,90,06,8D,0E 
13,4C,1A,15,AD,0E,13,69 
41,8D,3E,13,A0,01,AD,0C 
13,CD,00,0B,D0,20,C8,AD 
0D,13,CD,01,0B,D0,17,C8 
AD,0E,13,CD,0  2,0B,D0,0E 
AD,0F,13,CD,0  3,0B,D0,06 
20, 89, 15, A4, FA, 60, 98, 48 
68,4C,AF,13,A9,04, 4C,AF 
13,A9,00,8D,00,FF,A9,20 
8D,00,D4,8D,01,D4,A9,09 
8D,0  5,D4,A9,0F,8D,18,D4 
60, 20, 61, 15, A9, 81, 20, 9C 
15,A9,80,20,9C,15,4C,96 

15,20,61, 15, A9, 11, 20, 9C 
15,A9,10,20,9C,15,A9,00 

8D,04,D4,60,8D,04,D4,A2 
70,A0,00,8  8,D0,FD,CA,D0 
FA, 60, END 


END 


COMMODORE  MAGAZINE     111 


Programming/ Magazine  Article  Cataioger 


"ADVERTISERS  INDEX 


Continued  from  page  76 

1230  PRINT" [WHITE, SPACE2,SHFT  A] 

RTICLE  SUBJECT: [YELLOW] " 

:PRINT  SPSATS (Q) "CKKH 
1240  PRINT" [WHITE, SPACE2, SHFT  C] 

OMMENTS : (YELLOW] " : PRINT  SPSMC$ (Q) 

:RETURN'DLSH 
1250  PRINT" [DOWN2, WHITE, SPACE2, SHFT  P] 

RESS  [GREEN] [ [SHFT  C] ] [WHITE] 
TO  CONTINUE  LISTING  OK"' BAPL 
1260  PRINT" [SPACE2] PRESS  [L.  BLUE)[ 

[SHFT  P] ] [WHITE]  TO  PRINT  OR 

[RED]  [  [SHFT  Q]  ]  [WHITE] 
TO  QUIT"'BAHM 
1270  PRINT" [SPACE2] SEARCHING  AND 

RETURN  TO  MENU."'BAPK 
1280  KES="":GET  KES:IF  KE$=""THEN 


1290 
1300 

1310 
1320 
1330 

1340 
1350 

1360 

1370 

1380 

1390 

1400 

1410 

1420 
1430 

1 4  4  'J 
1450 
14bO 

1470 


1480 


149*) 


15L13 


1513 


1520 


RETURN' EDFH 
GOSUB  1330 

GOTO  100'EGBB 


PRINTER 


BOKE 


";MTS(Q) 

PRINT#3, 
:";MI¥(Q) 

PRINT#3," 
:  ";MA$(Q) 
PRINT#3," 
:  ";MP$(Q) 
PR  I  NT #3," 
:  ";AA$(Q) 
PRINTS  3, " 
:";AT$ (Q) 
PRINT*3," 
:";MCS(o) 


P]AGE  OF  ARTICLE- 

AjUTIIORS     NAME 

A) RTICLE  SU8JECT- 
C] OMMENTS 


3'UFUB 


GOTO  1280'GPBK 

IF  KES="C"THEN 

IF  KES="P"THEN 

: RETURN' FIFB 

IF  KES="Q"THEN 

GOTO  1280'BEIY 

REM  -  PRINT  TO 

OPEN  3,4,7'BFXB 

PRINT#3," [SHFT  M]AGAZINL 

BJYI 
[SHFT  M]ONTH/YEAR 

BJBJ 

ISHFT  AJRTICLL  NAME — 

BJWK 

SHFT 

BJDL 

SHFT 

BJTM 

SHFT 

BJIE 

SHFT 

BJMF 
PHI  NT #3 : PRINT* 3: CLOSE 
PRINT" [WHITE, SHFT  Pj 
RESS  ANY  KEY  TO  CONTINUE. 
GET  KES:IF  KE$=""THEN  1440 
RETURN'BAQC 

REM  -  SUBROUTINES  - ' BNAH 
PRINT" [ CLEAR, DOWN 2, WHITE] 
"TAB (7) " [YELLOW, SHFT  MJAGAZINE 
[SHFT  AJ RTICLE  [SHFT  CJATALOGER 
[WHITE] ":RETURN'DDYQ 
PRINT" [CLEAR, DOWN2, CYAN, SHFT  P] 
LEASE  WAIT...  (SHFT  S  ]  EARCii  I  NG  .  " 
: RETUKN'CBPP 

PRINT" [CLEAR, WHITE, SHFT  S] 
EARCH  IS  FINISHED." 
:FOR  W=l  TO  15O0:IJEXT 
:GOTO  10  0'GMJS 

PRI NT" [CLEAR, DOWN , WH I TE ,SHFT  F] 
OUND  A  MATCH.  ":GOSUB  1 1  7  LI 
: GOSUB  1250 : RETURN ' ELCH 
GOSUB  90: IF  EF>EC  THEN  PRINT" 
IKED, SHFT  D,SHFT  I, SHFT  S,SHFT 
[SHFT  E,SHFT  R2,SHFT  0,SHFT  R 
#"EF;E$:CLOSE  2:CL0SE  15 
:STOP' ISSP 
RETURN' BAQA 


" "BAVI 
ELOF 


K] 


END 


Computer  Direct  (Protecto) 


MicroProse 


Midwest  Software 


Montgomery  Gront 


Patech  Software 


Quantum  Computer  Service 


Strategic  Simulations 


SubLoqic  Corporation 


Toito 


Reodei 


Advertiser 

Response 

NO. 

Page 
No. 

Abacus  Software 

1 

23 

Adams  Software 

2 

77 

Berkeley  Softworks 

1 

3 

14,15 

Bnwall 

A 

47 

Commodore  Business  Machines 

• 

43 

5  104,105,106,107 


12 


25 


13 


81 


14 


65 


21 


';■ 


29,31,33 


16 


C4 


17 


19 


36,37 


Tussey  Computer  Products 


20 


6,7 


World  of  Commodore 


63 


Data  East 

6 

5 

Electronic  Arts 

7 

2 

Haitex 

8 

C2 

Jonathan  Jager  Int 

9 

1 

Loadstar 

10 

11 

Microillusions 

11 

39,  C3 

"No  Reader  Response  Number  given  at  Advertiser's  Request 


112    AUGUST  1988 


17406  Chatsworth  St,  Granada  Hills,  Ca.91344 
Inside  CA  818/360-3715  •  Outside  CA  800/522-2041  •  FAX  818/360-1464 


Prepare  for  the  ultimate  fantasy  when  the 

f,^  offidai  Advanced 
Dungeonsfypiagons 

Game  Product  comes  alive  on  your  computer! 


OOT     proudly  presents 
OOa    Pool  of  Radiance, 
the  culmination  of  its  collabo- 
ration with  TSR  to  bring  the 
legendary  ADVANCED 
DUNGEONS  &  DRAGONS® 
fantasy  role -playing  system  to 
your  home  computer. 

Pool  ok  Radiance  is  set  in  the  huge, 
complex  world  of  the  Forgotten 
Realms,  a  world  brought  to  life  by 
the  combined  talents  and  skills  of 
top  designers  and  programmers 
from  both  companies.  Its  game 
system  adheres  faithfully  to  AD&DS 
standards.  Its  state-of-the-art  graphics 
push  the  very  limits  of  the  computer's 
capabilities.  The  only  way  to  believe  it  is 
to  experience  it  for  yourself —  wherever 
game  software  is  sold. 

Look  for  the  entire  line  of  AD&D 
computer  products  coming  soon 
from  SSI. 


Roll  up  your 
characters 
and  see  their 
parti-aits 
and  charac- 
teristics. 
(C-  64/1 28 
screen 
display.) 


Every  single 
monster  type 
is  individu- 
ally drawn 
by  superb 
computer 
graphics. 
(IBM  PC 
screen 
display.) 


STRATEGIC  SIMULATIONS,  INC. 
1046  N.  Rengstorff  Avenue 
Mountain  View,  CA  94Q43 
(415)  964-1353 


C19B8  TSR,  Inc.  C198B  Strategic  Simulation,!,  Inc. 
All  right*  Kterved.